FORMER TV star and radio jockey Tich Mataz has appeared in court charged with fraud

FORMER TV star and radio jockey Tich Mataz has appeared in court charged with fraud – his latest run-in with the law after facing similar charges in 2007.

Mataz, real name Tichafa Matambanadzo, is accused of swindling a Harare man of US$5,000 in an alleged con which has already seen two others, including a former top commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe, charged.

The former Coca-Cola On The Beat star, deported from South Africa in 1998 over identity fraud, was not asked to plead in a brief appearance before Harare magistrate Shane Kubonera.

He was freed on US$100 bail.
Prosecutors say Mataz, working with Air Commodore Kennedy Remigio Zimondi and a Harare woman, Edith Chinyangare, defrauded one Jimmy Makurumbandi of US$5,000.

It is alleged that they misrepresented to Makurumbandi that they had organised a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, on government business.

The arrangement was that Makurumbandi would go on the trip with Matambanadzo and Chinyangare in place of Zimondi whom they alleged was under a travel ban.

The trio, it is further alleged, told Makurumbandi that the trip was “self-sponsored”, but undertook to refund him upon their return.

Makurumbandi was allegedly shown a "travel confirmation” which was only a booking. The trip never materialised.
 
Zimondi, 56, and Chinyangare appeared in court last week and were freed on bail.
Zimondi, meanwhile, faces another charge of defrauding a Harare man, Muboko Zvitei , of R235,000 in connivance with two other men, Jackson Makate, 29, and Blessing July, 26.

Mataz was arrested in 2007 over allegations of defrauding the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Basic Commodities Supply Intervention Side (Bacossi) programme. The matter is yet to go to trial.

He was a radio high flyer on South Africa’s 5FM before being kicked out of the country after it was established he was using fake immigration documents.