Byron Rocher, a former employee at Zambezi Cruise Safaris, was Tuesday hauled before a Harare magistrate for allegedly prejudicing the company of US$132,133 in fake transactions.
Prosecutors allege the 42-year-old used the money to pay his personal expenses.
He appeared before Harare magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa and was granted US$500 bail.
Rocher will be back in court on September 24.
According to court papers, on several occasions between November 2020 to December 2022, Rocher took advantage of an elderly company bookkeeper and subordinate whom he gave fake invoices to process.
During the two years, he allegedly siphoned US$132,133 from the company.
“Sometime in February 2020, complainant employed a new bookkeeper, Sandra Mackay Theresa, aged 70 years, who was responsible for issuing petty cash to staff, including the accused, and generating salaries for low level employees,” court papers read.
“In turn, the accused would countersign on every payment to be made, save for his salary that was prepared by his superiors.
“Thereafter, the accused generated petty cash requests for various reasons, ranging from payment for school fees, salary, medical expenses etc, and submitted to the bookkeeper for processing.
“In turn, the bookkeeper processed the fraudulent payments without questioning her immediate supervisor (Rocher).
“She acted on the misrepresentation and disbursed the money as and when the money was requested.”
Rocher is also accused of lying to the bookkeeper of Zambezi Cruise Safari’s South African affiliate and giving her instructions to settle his personal bills for various expenses created in the neighbouring country.
His luck ran out when the company hired a new bookkeeper sometime this year, who found that Rocher was using the company’s funds to settle his personal expenses that he had incurred while in South Africa.
The accountant also discovered that Rocher would receive his salary before fraudulently getting more money through the bookkeeper.
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