Old Mutual employee in K5 million insurance fraud

Police in Blantyre have arrested Old Mutual Insurance Company employee, Gerald Chifundo Mbewe for doctoring insurance policies to defraud the company millions of Kwachas.

Mbewe, 30 –years-old was working as Client Service Personnel until he was suspended in July this year after being cornered to have tempered some clients’ insurance policies and managed to swindled the company, one of the country’s oldest and biggest insurance companies, K5.2 million.

Blantyre Police confirmed to have arrested Mbewe who hails from Mulongolora village T/A Kanduku in Mwanza earlier this month and is currently under custody.

“Mr. Gerald Mbewe as client service Personnel during his term in office added his own beneficiaries into the existing policy, reopened closed policies as if they were new, made duplicate policies and forged non-existence policies. He, thereafter, processed their monetary benefits,” explained Blantyre Police spokesperson, Lameck Thembachako.

According to Thembachako, Old Mutual got suspicious with Mbewe after he had doctored one of already paid insurance policies.

“Mr. Mbewe added two beneficiaries into the policy of late Mr. Erason Kaseko before reopening the same policy some months later and added other beneficiaries.

“ The company got suspicious and questioned one of late Mr. Kaseko’s children. It was discovered that there were two beneficiaries on the policy (Grace Mwenda aged 29 from Bwanthuwa village, Traditional authority Timbiri in Nkhatabay district and other girl) that the child didn’t recognize.

“It was also noted that the added beneficiaries had received higher shares than the ones the policy owner/holder had put. Grace Mwenda received MK1.2 million while MK300, 000.00 the other girl. The other strange thing was that the re-opened/duplicate policy of the late Mr. Erason Kaseko had other beneficiaries contrary to the original (old) policy,” Thembachako said.

Late Erason Kaseko’s insurance policy aside, Mbewe who resides in Chinyonga Township is also said to have doctored at least three other policies.

“It was discovered that Mr. Mbewe was using other people’s bank accounts to cash the forged insurance policies. We once arrested Grace Mwenda who was deposited MK1.2 million. But Mwenda disclosed it was Mbewe who used her National Bank account in December 2010 to deposit and cash the money,” he added.

Other fake beneficiaries on doctored insurance policies, Thembachako said, were interrogated and revealed to be Gerald Mbewe’s close friends.

The interrogated fake beneficiaries implicated Mbewe in the scam and Police have since turned them into state witnesses.

“The interested part of the story or the funny thing is that Gerald Mbewe is denying knowing his close friends whom he used in the scam. Police investigations are in progress to arrest any person within the company who took part in the scam. There are expectations that more doctored policies will be known the involved money in the fraud will rise,” Thembachako explained.

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