By Mary Taruvinga

A HARARE man is in trouble after anonymous suspicious funds were deposited into his bank account before the funds were withdrawn in Ivory Coast and France.

David Jose Chikungwa (26) who holds an account with BancABC is answering to money laundering charges.

He was arraigned before Harare magistrate Dennis Mangosi Friday and was remanded in custody.

The complainant is BancABC Bank and it is being represented by its security officer Tendal Nzombe.

It is alleged that sometime during the month of October 2021, the accused person opened two BancABC Visa Prepaid account numbers.

The State alleges in October, the accused person visited the BancABC branch in Mt Pleasant, and he collected the Visa cards.

Chikungwa allegedly deposited US$3 into each of the accounts.

The court heard on October 23 at around 0100 hours, one of Chikungwa’s accounts was deposited with US$10 000.

According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the source of the funds is still unclear.

It is alleged on the same day, the amount deposited was withdrawn on a different ATM in Ivory Coast and the account was left with no money in it.

On October 25 at around 1200 hours, the accused’s other account was deposited with US$100 000.

The source of the funds is still yet unclear and the accused failed to disclose where the money came from.

Within a few minutes after the account had been deposited with the amount, US$30 000 cash was withdrawn at an ATM which is in Paris, France.

It is alleged that on October 25 at around 1300 hours, Chikungwa allegedly visited BancABC, Mt Pleasant Branch where he stated one of his Visa bank cards, was lost so he was in need of another bank card linked to this account.

Upon submitting his bank account number to the bank teller, it was discovered that the same Visa account number was flagged by VISA International on October 23 after suspicious transactions were noticed in Ivory Coast

After being interviewed about the source of these funds which were being deposited into both of his accounts, Chikungwa failed to give a satisfactory response prompting the complainant to make a report to the police.

BancABC suffered a prejudice of US$40 000 and nothing was recovered.