Cape Town - Members of stokvel saving clubs have already been robbed of R430 000 over the past two weeks, according to police in Port Elizabeth.
At least seven cases related to the armed robbery of stokvel money were reported in the past two weeks in the Motherwell cluster ‘alone’, police spokesperson Andre Beetge said. That means there are investors that lost R430 000 due to the negligence of their stokvel investment organisers.
Beetge said on Monday there were another two incidents where stokvel money were withdrawn from banks. Once the carriers reach their destinations, armed robbers would show up and take all of it.
“Over the past month police in Nelson Mandela Bay have on several occasions warned the organisers and investors in stokvels and savings clubs not to move around with large sums of money and to rather make use of electronic banking solutions to distribute and share the money,” he said.
“It is with great disappointment that both police Cluster Commanders of Nelson Mandela Bay have seen that those warnings were not adhered to and that these stokvel clubs just look the other way and continues to operate with large sums of cash in their possession,” Beetge said.
Motherwell Cluster Commander Major General Dawie Rabie expressed strongly that these stokvel organisers does not seem to have the best interests of their investors at heart. Investigations have been launched to probe the organisers who blatantly ignore police warnings and then proceed to have these monies robbed from them.
"Investors should do research on their stokvel club organisers before joining and make sure that their investments will be kept safe and distributed in safe ways back to them,” Rabie said.
He said there should be minimum risk of being robbed by making use of electronic transfers. “While this is continued not to be done, more robberies will take place and more investors will go empty-handed".
The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) has also warned people to exercise caution over tactics that criminals are using to defraud people this Festive Season, to ensure that they are aware of how to protect their hard-earned cash.
Sabric's acting chief executive officer Susan Potgieter said people should refrain from making cash deposits of club members’ contributions on high-risk days such as Mondays after month end.
“People must ensure that persons depositing club cash contributions or making withdrawals are accompanied by another club member,” Potgieter said. A stokvel savings club or burial society can arrange for members to deposit cash directly into the club’s account instead of collecting cash contributions.
She said they should arrange for the club’s pay out to be electronically transferred into each club member’s personal account or accounts of their choice, and should take another person with when going to deposit club cash contributions.