Judge refuses to take sting out of jail term for ‘Sars’ scam

OUR criminal of the week is David Raseemela, convicted of fraud, extortion, theft and breach of the Customs and Excise Act.

Raseemela and his wife cooked up a scheme to adopt a fraudulent identity: with ID cards purporting to show they worked for the SA Revenue Service (Sars), they selected the owner of Mojo Clothing in Port Elizabeth as their target.

Brazen as an al-Bashir flouting international law in Sandton they strode into Mojo, flashing the cards they assumed would give them immunity from suspicion. They announced themselves as employees of Sars and began an “inspection” of the stock, finding nine lines of clothing they alleged were counterfeit.

According to Raseemela, each such counterfeit line attracted a fine of R5 000. He told the shop owner to accompany him to the police station, where an officer, similarly duped by the Sars ID cards, stamped an official warning document.

On the way back from the police station Raseemela said he could make the whole problem disappear for a mere R15 000, later reduced to R10 000. Compared with a looming fine of R45 000, this must have seemed a bargain.

Tempted, the shop owner drew his maximum allowance from an ATM and paid Raseemela R1 000 as a deposit against the total outstanding. The rest would be paid later, they agreed.

As he left, Raseemela and his wife took four items of clothing – without paying.

Three days later they were back, demanding the R9 000 balance. But the shop owner complained to the police and the couple were arrested.

With all the cheek of a visiting international pariah head of state facing down a South African high court, Raseemela continued to insist they were working for Sars and produced identification documents to support their claim.

During their investigation, however, the police found plenty of incriminating evidence: many other documents and identification cards with the names and photographs of Raseemela and his wife, purporting to be those of Sars, the SAPS and others.

Unluckily for the Raseemela couple they did not have the Air Force Base Waterkloof and its planes put at their disposal to whisk them out of this tricky situation. Being people of no apparent consequence to the African Union, to Harare or to Pretoria, they actually had to stand trial and face the consequences of their actions.

In court there was clear evidence that neither of them was a Sars official, and that they were not authorised to carry out any duties in relation to customs and excise inspections.

Convicted by the regional court, Port Elizabeth, Raseemela appealed to the high court, where Judge Glenn Goosen agreed that the fraud conviction amounted to a duplication of the extortion and other charges. Scrapping that conviction has, however, made no difference to his jail term.

Raseemela further argued the magistrate had not considered that he had been in custody awaiting trial for 15 months before the matter was finalised. The high court didn’t buy this argument, however, and the judge found Raseemela’s personal circumstances were taken into account.

According to Raseemela, his sevenyear sentence “induces shock”. Not so, said the judge; the sentence was neither shockingly inappropriate nor disproportionate.

It was clear that Raseemela had gone to great lengths to commit the “carefully planned and well executed” offences. He created a false persona, obtained false ID documents, carefully identified his target and then “brazenly took the shop owner to a police station to strengthen the impression that this was a legitimate and official investigation” by Sars.

He threatened the shop owner with a significant fine and, having extorted money, he returned to collect still more. During the trial it was clear that he neither accepted responsibility for his actions nor was he remorseful for his conduct, concluded the judge. It’s an intriguing case. You can’t help but wonder how many other people were caught by the Raseemela “sting”. With all those fake IDs, primed and ready for action, there could well have been more shop owners or others targeted by the criminals.

Will they come forward now, after reading of the capture and conviction of the couple? Perhaps not. Like improperly using state funds to benefit the visiting high and mighty, paying bribes to officials is a growing part of our culture, and the other victims of the Raseemela scam may simply shrug their shoulders and write it off as part of the cost of doing business in South Africa.