Cape Town – A former police captain who illegally ran his own private detective agency, and now faces multiple charges of fraud, is to go on trial in May next year.
Paul Scheepers, 44, made his final preliminary appearance on Thursday, in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
The magistrate scheduled his trial for May 2 next year, and set it down for two consecutive days.
Scheepers , who is out on R20 000 bail, was attached to the Crime Intelligence Unit, but also ran his own private detective agency in the name of Eagle Eye Solutions Technology.
Two senior State advocates, Thersia du Toit-Smit and Max Orban, are to prosecute him as a team, while defence attorney John Riley is to represent him.
He faces 23 fraud charges, as well as one alleged contravention of the Private Security Industry Act, one violation of the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act and one relating to the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca).
Cell phone service providers such as MTN and Vodacom, may not provide the police with the records of cell phone calls made and received, for criminal investigations, without a document known as a subpoena, signed by a senior magistrate and the prosecuting authorities.
In order to obtain such a subpoena, an investigating official has to submit a sworn affidavit, giving details of the particular investigation, the numbers of the cell phones involved and the reason the cell phone records were required.
In obtaining such numbers from MTN and Vodacom for official purposes, it is alleged that Scheepers fraudulently included the numbers of cell phones under private investigation by his own detective agency.
African News Agency