Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Hawks this week pounced on an elaborate two-man multimillion-rand fraud scheme that almost took Ithala bank to the cleaners.
The two, Nomfundo Precious Msibi, 24, and Altaaf Bashir, 34, appeared before Durban’s Commercial Crimes Court and were each released on R3 000 bail.
According to the charge sheet, Msibi had falsely “concluded a valid contract with MTN to establish a cellular call centre for public use, for which financial assistance of R8 million was required, to be funded by Ithala Bank”.
Police spokesman Jay Naicker said Msibi had been seeking R15m, but was told by Ithala that she was only eligible for R8.1m.
“However, when she submitted the contract to the bank and the contract was perused, a few concerns were spotted. The bank approached the Durban Commercial Crime Unit, who began their investigation.
“During the investigation, it was found that the suspect had supplied the bank with false documents, and one of her suppliers was her brother, who did not have any experience in setting up call centres,” Naicker said.
Investigators probed the authenticity of the contract, and it was confirmed by MTN that they had not issued a call centre contract to the suspect.
“Yesterday (Wednesday), the suspects were called in to sign their contract, and as soon as they signed the documents, members of the Hawks arrested them,” he said.
Ithala spokesman Themba Mathe said the bank had picked up on the discrepancy while performing verification procedures.
“It is crucial that these fraudulent transactions are picked up as they are obstacles in Ithala delivering on its mandate to empower the people of KwaZulu-Natal by stimulating economic activity. Through our internal controls, we managed to save a potential loss of more than R8m,” he said.
MTN’s business risk management general manager, Lily Zondo, said although such crimes were not rife, it was clear that “the criminals were attempting to defraud a financial institution using false documents”.
The Mercury