Cape Town - The inner workings of one of South Africa’s biggest social grant fraud syndicates has been revealed after one of the 14 people arrested in the country’s biggest crackdown pleaded guilty and turned State witness.
Nosipho Majola from Mitchells Plain agreed to testify against the members of a crime syndicate which has defrauded the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) of more than R35 million.
The syndicate targeted vulnerable, impoverished and elderly people by siphoning state grants for self benefit. Eight of the suspected fraud syndicate members were Sassa employees.
The Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court sentenced Majola to six years imprisonment, suspended for five years on condition that she was not convicted of corruption during this period of suspension.
Majola was caught red-handed during an undercover operation by the province’s Anti-Corruption Task Team.
The mother of three offered an undercover agent R12 500 after he agreed to fraudulently register IDs and arrange for Sassa banking cards.
In June last year, officials based at Sassa’s Matlotsane and Tlokwe offices in the North West Province discovered fraud indicators which led to an investigation. Although the grants were captured, verified and approved in the North West Province, the issuing of the Sassa cards was done in the Western Cape while withdrawals were made in KwaZulu-Natal.
This led to 19 Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) officials being dismissed after disciplinary hearings were held. CPS is a service provider employed by Sassa to distribute grant payments to beneficiaries.
The dismissal of the CPS employees created a situation where it became critical for members of the syndicate to recruit new CPS officials into the fold.
A woman approached a CPS employee and confessed to him that she was part of a syndicate operating from KwaZulu-Natal and that she was looking to recruit. The woman told the employee - who later became an agent for police -she expected him to load Sassa cards and she would provide details of the beneficiaries.
The agent, who will testify for the State, was contacted by one of the co-accused, Nombuyiselo Sigcau from the Eastern Cape.
Sigcau arranged she would meet the agent in the Western Cape in February to hand over 50 IDs which had to be fraudulently registered. The agent would then be paid with 20 of the cards as payment.
After the agent was paid by the syndicate at Cape Town International Airport, police swooped and arrested them. The cash handover was caught on camera and formed part of the State's evidence.
Cape Argus