Conned out of R2.3m
Man loses pension in fraud scam
AN EMKHOMAZI (Umkomaas) man has been left penniless after he was conned out of R2.3 million by Durban-based tricksters who used an elaborate series of ruses to persuade him to part with his entire pension – plus a bank loan.
The factory worker met the fraudsters when he responded to a newspaper advertisement for a pick-me-up ointment last year. The relationship developed and his excitement grew when, in one session, R10 000 rained down on him.
The father of seven, who asked not be named to spare himself embarrassment, has appealed to the authorities to find the men who have left his family in poverty.
He told the Daily News he bought the ointment from a healer at the man’s offices at the corner of Joe Slovo (Field) and Anton Lembede (Smith) streets for R450.
It failed to have the desired effect, but before he could call to complain, he was contacted and told to return for new medicine.
He met the healer in a darkened room where he received instructions on how to take the muti. It was about then that other people, hidden by the darkness, began to speak.
The “voices”, which spoke to him in English with a marked foreign accent, told him they liked him because he was “respectful” and wanted to give him a gift.
Over the next few days he returned to the healer several times.
The advisers asked him his age, where he worked and for how long he had worked. “They said I had worked so many years but had no millions… they said I must go buy a bag and I went to buy one from the street,” he said.
Several times he was given instructions to buy bags, which he was led to believe would be filled with money. On one of these occasions, in the dark room, he felt money raining down on him. He counted it and found it was R10 000.
The voices told him they had given him the money because they “loved” him.
They wanted to give him R24 million, but said for this to happen, he needed to first give them a sum of money.
To get the money he took early retirement from his job at a paper mill. But the voices told him the lump-sum pension payout of R969 000 due to him was too small and they could not wait for the balance in installments.
He went back to his workplace and explained he needed all the money due to him. He was advised at that point to resign (instead of retiring) and received a total payout of R2 260 290.
His early resignation meant his payout was subject to a heavy tax deduction and he lost other benefits.
Healer
He withdrew the money from the bank over five days and gave it to the healer, who each time waited for him in a car outside the bank.
Then before he could get his promised payout, the voices said they (the voices) would have to go to Mount Kilimanjaro where they would buy a leopard skin and pray at the mountain.
A series of calls followed, pur- portedly from Tanzania, followed by requests for more money to facilitate the return of one of the “voices”. The caller explained that palms had to be greased and the taxman squared so they could return to Durban to release the R24m.
For this the man borrowed R100 000 from a bank.
But then an appointment to meet in the Durban CBD on April 25 did not materialise. He waited for a call to confirm an alternative date: April 29. But no call came.
Desperate for news of money, the man went to the healer’s premises but found no-one there.
Calls to the healer’s cellphone went to voicemail.
“It was then that I realised my money was gone,” he said.
He said he had been told by the voices not to tell anyone about the windfall that was coming his way, but he finally explained to his wife what had happened. “Things are bad,” he said. He said he now had no money to feed his children and was deep in debt.
He called on the government to help him get his money back.
SAPS Major Thulani Zwane said: “We can confirm that a case of theft by false pretence was opened at Durban Central Police Station. No arrest has been made at this stage.”
In 2012 the Daily News reported on the arrest of a Congolese man and two Liberians for the Black Dollar Scam in the Pietermaritzburg CBD after a sting operation by the city’s Detectives Fraud Section.
It was alleged the perpetrators were going to people known to have large sums of money and convincing their “victims” they could double their money. They showed victims a machine that could clean stained money bills.
Victims were encouraged to hand over their money and got “money” back, wrapped in black packaging.
They would later find the packaging was filled with black paper.
Last year police warned about an SMS scam after a woman was conned out of R1 850.
The 48-year-old received an SMS saying she had won R350 000 and was told to call a number supplied in the SMS.
She called and was urged to deposit R1 850 to an account so she could claim the R350 000. She paid the money. On calling them back, her call went straight to voicemail.