Court hears how quick police action netted petrol attendant in possession of bank card skimmer
Cape Town - The quick arrival of the police at a petrol filling station in Bellville, led to the arrest of a petrol attendant allegedly in possession of an illegal bank card skimming device, a charge sheet alleges.
The arrival of the police followed a bank investigation, triggered by the complaints of several victims who had used their cards at the Stellenberg Motors filling station, in Cape Town’s northern suburbs.
The petrol attendant, Mzimasi Bizwapi, 40, appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Bellville, on Tuesday, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
He will plead in December, to charges of possession of a skimming device, and conspiracy to commit fraud.
According to the charge sheet, he was arrested in December last year, at the filling station.
The charge sheer tells how the owner of Stellenberg Motors received complaints from customers who had fallen victim to fraudulent transactions, involving their bank cards.
Their personal investigations revealed that the last lawful transactions with their respective bank cards had been at the filling station in question.
In turn, the garage proprietor notified Standard Bank’s fraud investigator, Pieter Jordaan.
Jordaan soon uncovered a bank card fraud syndicate, which allegedly included Bizwapi.
Prosecutor Siphokazi Makanda alleges that the syndicate placed Bizwapi in possession of the skimming device, and his role was to use the skimmer to capture the data on the encoded magnetic strips of credit and debit cards, used by customers to pay for petrol.
It is alleged that after doing this, Bizwapi sold the captured information to the person who supplied him with the skimmer.
In June last year, the petrol station manager, Coreen Steyn, became suspicious of goings-on at the filling station, and alerted the police.
According to the charge sheet, a police official arrived soon afterwards and searched all the attendants on duty - and allegedly found a skimmer in Bizwapi’s trouser pocket.
He is to plead to the charges on December 9.
ANA