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Harare maid pleads guilty to stealing employer's US$107 000, awaits sentencing

Local News

A 34-YEAR-OLD Harare woman has pleaded guilty to stealing US$107 000  from her Chinese employer, and sharing the loot with her cop boyfriend who has reportedly gone into hiding.

Marvelous Mapfumo was employed as a maid at Sisi Lin's house and had access to her employer's bedroom where large sums of money were kept in an unsecured drawer.

Provincial magistrate Ethel Chichera is set to sentence her later today.

Circumstances are that sometime last month, the complainant Sisi Lin ordered Mapfumo to clean her bedroom where the latter kept large sums of money from her retail business.

When Mapfumo discovered where the money was stashed, she informed her boyfriend, Herbert Chihwiza stationed at Central Criminal Bureau, Harare.

On May 30, 2024, the complainant left his house unlocked, leaving cash amounting to US$107 000 in the bedroom.

Mapfumo contacted Chihwiza and asked him to pick her up with the stolen money. 

Chihwiza and his workmate Paul Kondo drove to Mapfumo's workplace in Highlands and collected her.

Mapfumo told the court that she shared the money with Chikwiza and Kondo after they promised to protect her.

On June 12, 2024, detectives from CID Nkulumane, Bulawayo, received information that Mapfumo had boarded a South Africa-bound truck to flee arrest.

She was arrested and brought back to CID Highlands, Harare, where she implicated Chihwiza and Kondo as her accomplices.

Further investigations established that the trio met at a lodge in Waterfalls, where they shared the loot.

The two police officers got US$30 000 each, while Mapfumo got the lion's share of US$47 000.

Chihwiza went on to take Mapfumo’s share for safe-keeping saying he feared for her security.

The court heard that Kondo later took Mapfumo to his girlfriend’s house in Sunningdale, where he barred her from talking to anyone while he organised her transport to South Africa.

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