By Staff Writer:
The press in neighbouring Zambia have been reporting that a bunch of Indian nationals who have been working in that country and were answering various charges in Lusaka have fled into Malawi undetected.
But National Police Spokesperson Peter Kalaya asked for more time to investigate.
Both the Lusaka Times and Muvi TV recently published stories alleging that eight foreign nationals who have been working with regional oil giant Mount Meru Limited were arrested and charged with multiple counts of money laundering, intellectual property rights fraud, theft and corruption in a Lusaka Magistrate court.
In this matter, Chetankumar Chambalal Jain, 41, a chief executive officer has been jointly charged with Shastri Dilipbhai, 46; Ashish Kumar Dixit, 42; Sharna Kumar, 47, of Emmasdale and Kalpesh Patel, 46, of Roma park.
According to a Muvi TV report, last month the eight were brought to a Lusaka Magistrate Court under Jenipher Bwalya where they were charged with business espionage for allegedly stealing intellectual property in form of diagrams, bills of quantity (BOQs) and images valued at around ZK 95 million belonging to Mount Meru Zambia Limited.
Case particulars indicates that five of the suspects between November 2020 and July 2021 in Lusaka stole the items in question from its rightful owner.
Therefore among others, they have been charged with unauthorized access to, interception of, or interference with computer systems and data contrary to section 49 (4) of the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act No 2 (2021) of the Republic of Zambia.
The intellectual property that belonged to the oil company is said to be critical in the construction of filling stations in Zambia.
It is further alleged that Arora, was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of Zambia for trying to induce an Energy Regulatory Board (ERB) official with a ZK 4,000.00 bribe which the official declined.
Following the news, Malawian authorities having being alerted by the red flag have not been forthcoming with information regarding their vigilance to prevent the alleged fugitives from crossing over into the country.
Attempts to get a situation report on the matter from Area 30 has not yielded much result as the information holder of the service has been asking for more and more time to investigate.
Malawi and Zambia have a working extradition treaty for alleged criminals who cross the common border between the two countries.
Recently Zambia extradited back to Malawi Chinese citizen Lu Ke who is currently answering charges of exploiting children in Malawi and had escaped into Zambia where he was arrested by that country’s authorities.
