26/08/2010 00:00:00
by Staff Reporters
Ruthless ... Frank Buyanga in photo handout from Hertfordshire police
A LOAN shark believed to have seized up to 500 stands and houses from his customers in Harare has links with the notorious businessman Nicholas Van Hoogstraten, and is wanted by British police over mortgage fraud, New Zimbabwe.com can reveal.
Police in Harare said this week they were investigating Frank Tawanda Buyanga, 34, who has been running an illegal financial services company - Hamilton Finance -- after dozens of people handed over their title deeds to support their borrowing.
Police say people who borrowed money from Buyanga were repaying 10 percent of the sum monthly - and in the event of defaulting, it would be one percent more for everyday the premium was outstanding.
Customers failing to make any further payments have had their surety - mainly in housing stands and properties - forfeited by Buyana.
Police spokesman Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said: "At least 16 people who have come forward handed him their title deeds for properties worth a combined US$3,675 million."
Investigations by New Zimbabwe.com have revealed that Buyanga is on the wanted list of Hertfordshire police along with three other Zimbabweans - Canaan Moyo, 31, Greenbert Nekati, 28, and Regis Paradza, 47, -- who are wanted on unconnected charges.
Hertforshire police were investigating Buyanga for mortgage fraud relating to properties sold in Corby where he operated a mortgage firm when he fled to Zimbabwe last year.
But Buyanga concealed his UK legal troubles, and his victims would be horrified to learn that he has connections with Hoogstraten - a controversial British property magnate known for ill-treating tenants.
Hoogstraten -- referred to as a "bully" and an "emissary of Beelzebub" by two English judges - was in 2005 ordered to pay the family of slain business rival Mohammed Raja £6 million in a civil suit after a judge found on the balance of probabilities that he hired thugs to murder him "and not merely frightening or hurting him". The Appeal Court had earlier quashed Hoogstraten's 2002 manslaughter conviction for which he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Following Hoogstraten's arrest in Zimbabwe for charging his tenants in foreign currency in January 2008, the Financial Gazette newspaper reported at the time that before entering court, the tycoon thought to be worth £200 million, "met his Zambian business partner Frank Buyanga, who was on hand to give him moral support as he faced trial in a country that he claims to have helped so much."
Why Buyanga posed as a Zambian is unclear. But his ability to dispense large amounts of money ranging between US$2,000 and US$60,000 in at least 40 reported cases, and his focus on real estate, will fuel suspicions that he is a proxy for Hoogstraten.
We have also established that Buyanga registered another company in Zimbabwe, Zimconcepts Limited, which offers to "supply various types of timber -- non-processed and processed -- from Zimbabwe, shipped to any part of the world".
Although both Britain and Zimbabwe are members of Interpol, the two countries have never made a fugitive exchange. When several bankers and political opponents of President Mugabe's government fled to Britain over the last decade, UK authorities rebuffed Zimbabwe's urging to deport them back.
But with more Zimbabweans settling in the UK and some increasingly involved in serious crime, Britain may be forced to rebuild bridges to bring serious offenders to justice.
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