Cape Town - A corrupt Mossel Bay police official who took bribes totalling R65 500, over a period of three years, to issue false clearance certificates for vehicles that had not been inspected, was jailed for five years on Monday.
Daniel Fortuin, 59, appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, and pleaded guilty to charges framed in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act.
In addition to the five years imprisonment, he was fined R200 000 or two years.
The proceedings took the form of a plea bargain, negotiated by defence attorney N Slabber and senior State advocate Max Orban, the prosecutor.
According to the plea bargain document, Fortuin started taking R500 bribes from Cape Town car salesman Elton Abrahams, to fraudulently issue clearance certificates for vehicles that had not been inspected.
Abrahams would deposit the bribes at Shoprite’s Money Market in Cape Town, and then SMS the money market pin code to Fortuin in Mossel Bay.
This arrangement enabled Fortuin to provide a service to his customers, in which vehicle clearances would be issued without the vehicles first being inspected, as required by law.
According to the document, there were 91 money market transactions between Abrahams and Fortuin, and a total of 20 false clearance certificates were linked to specific money market transactions.
The prosecutor listed as aggravating factors that Fortuin had abused his position of trust in the police, and that many false clearance certificates had been issued over a period of three years.
African News Agency
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