Channel Pharmacy director arrested over $1,5m fraud
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Garikai Mafirakureva/Herald
Masvingo – The owner of Channel Pharmaceuticals (Private) Limited in Masvingo, Grace Kusotera (53) and her pharmacist Munyaradzi Malvin Munoda (32) were arrested last weekend on $1.5 million fraud charges.
This was after investigations carried out by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Commercial Crimes Department unearthed fraudulent generations of medical aid claims to CIMAS. Kusotera operates pharmacies in Masvingo and is registered by CIMAS under its Blue Zone network of service providers.
Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) national police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed the arrest.
“I can confirm the arrest Kusotera and Munoda for fraudulently generating inflated figures of medical aid claims to CIMAS and in some cases got paid for medication that was never provided to the beneficiaries,” said Ass Com Nyathi.
Sources close to the matter revealed that CIMAS conducted a quality check on claims submitted by Channel Pharmaceuticals before a validation exercise was carried out to check for the genuineness of prescriptions.
The validation revealed that between January 2021 and January 2022, Munoda who was working in cahoots with Kusotera, submitted 477 fraudulent claims to CIMAS worth ZWL$1 271 964 and US$2 008.
On September 17, 2019, Channel Pharmaceuticals allegedly signed a contractual agreement which stated that it would provide CIMAS’ members with medication and CIMAS would later pay for the medicines on behalf of the members.
They allegedly falsified documents that showed that CIMAS members had received drugs covered by the medical aid leading CIMAS to deposit the money into Channel Pharmaceuticals’ bank accounts.
During investigations at least 32 members whose names appeared on the fraudulent claims are said to have been interviewed and denied receiving any of the stated drugs with some saying they had no chronic conditions as stated in the claim forms.
Herald https://masvingomirror.com/