Chinese National on the Run Over $3.2m Fraud
Harare magistrate has issued a warrant of arrest for Chinese national Li Song who is wanted in connection with theft of trust property and fraudulent cash transfers involving millions of dollars.
Li is former director of Eagle Italian Leather company that supplies leather ware to the security sector in Zimbabwe.
The businesswoman who is also a director of DGL Investments is accused of swindling the company of US$2 million, after she fraudulently transferred large sums of money to some offshore accounts in violation of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe regulations.
On Tuesday, Li appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court in a case where she is a complainant against her former husband, Francisco Maccornati, but managed to evade arrest after the court case.
Detectives from the CID Commercial Crimes Division pursued her but allegedly failed to arrest her.
According to the court papers, sometime in January 2024, an accountant at DGL Investments tried to use the company’s Ecobank account to make foreign payments but was advised that the account was suspended by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
Chinese National on the Run Over $3.2m Fraud
He was advised that DGL Investments had made a foreign payment of US$ 1,659,851.10 which was not acquitted.
The account was also allegedly used to make another foreign payment of US$292,596.30 and no acquittal was done.
The company later engaged an external auditor who discovered that its subsidiary company Strengthened Investments’ Ecobank account, also had US$1,129,311.96 not yet acquitted.
The account was also allegedly used to make foreign payments of US$147,400.
Both companies had a total of US$3,232,159.30 in foreign payments that were not acquitted, according to the auditor.
All the transactions were allegedly done by Li without the knowledge of other directors and shareholders.
Li is also a director of a Mauritius-registered company Jacaranda Investments which is allegedly involved in swindling RBZ of millions of dollars through transfers after she listed the company as a supplier of raw leather.
Source| Newsday
