By Staff Reporter
Controversial businessman, Franscesco Marconati, spent two days hiding inside a mine shaft in Inyathi, orchestrating a movie-style escape through a weighbridge, bypassing the police waiting to arrest him at the main gate.
The Honda Fit was allegedly driven by one of his attorneys, Tendai Mutiro.
The police had been hunting him down for over 10 days on charges of fraud before they eventually arrested him yesterday in Harare on charges of fraud.
Marconati handed himself in after running out of options because he was supposed to report to Inyathi police as part of his bail requirements on charges of illegal possession of guns.
Apart from his arrest on new fraud charges, he now risks revocation of his bail after he failed to show up in Nyathi yesterday.
His lawyer, Mutiro, who led the movie-style escape at Marconati’s Duration Gold Limited (DGL) 5 Mine, likely faces judicial censure for obstruction of justice.
Marconati was arrested and DGL 5 alternate director Yan Bo for Ke Wang filed a report of fraud against him and Mark Andrew Hughes, of Australian origins who was illegally given shares by the Marondera-based businessman after an illegal takeover of the gold mine.
Hughes has already skipped the country to South Africa, according to his boarding pass on January 23 seen by afrodimensions.
The offence came to light on December 30 when Bo visited the Registrar of Companies where he discovered that Marconati and Hughes had re-registered the mine, appointing themselves as the only directors of DGL mine.
“Such actions by Franscesco Marconati and Mark Andrew Hughes amounts to fraud,” part of Ibo’s affidavit read.
“This is so because at the time of re-registration, Francesco Marconati and Mark Andrew Hughes had failed to to enforce the court order that they had obtained under HCBC 9/25. This means that the directors of Investment number 5 were Xing Ming Chang , Li Song and Ke Wang.”
Bo added: “Upon obtaining the court order under HCBC 9/25, the two tried to enforce it and failed as the Registrar of Companies or any other director or Sheriff for Zimbabwe was supposed to sign the new CR6 to enable the two to be reinstated as directors.
Furthermore, “After having failed to execute the said order under HCBC 9/25, it meant that the remaining directors on the CR6 were Xing Ming Chang, Li Song and Ke Wang.”
According to Bo, Marconani and Hughes made a court application, HCBC 9/25 to amend the court order, but withdrew the application after it flopped.
This, according to Bo, means the order for HCBC 9/25 could not be enforced and thus directorship of the mine remained unchanged.
“The two also filed HCBC 659/25 being an urgent application for execution pending appeal but the application was dismissed,” Bo said.
“This therefore meant that the directors remained as Xing Ming Chang, Li Song and Ke Wang.”
The two, Bo added, changed the directors and “unlawfully removed legally appointed three directors” ignoring a pending court case dealing with the issue of shareholding of the company.
He said Marconati and Gughes had no lawful authority to elbow the directors of DGL 5.
Marconati appeared at the Magistrates courts today and more details are to follow.
Marconani is currently on bail on charges of illegal possession of guns, some of which were used to shoot down villagers passing by his mine. The shootings triggered his arrest in December where he spent the Chirstimas holiday behind bars.
Villagers from Inyati have also been trying to protest against the businessman over the shooting, but twice blocked by the police, whom they accused of protecting him.
They claim he had been committing a lot of atrocities to villagers and workers with impunity.