Cape Town - Former police captain Sylvia Deloras Carstens will swap her blue uniform for orange overalls after being sentenced to a 10-year term of imprisonment.
She was convicted on more than 50 counts of fraud and one count of money laundering. Five years of her sentence was suspended for five years on condition that she is not convicted of money laundering during the period of suspension.
The Bellville Commercial Crimes Court on Friday heard that Carstens was employed at the Worcester SAPS Finance Section as finance clerk on November 1, 2001, and was promoted to the rank of captain on December 1, 2018.
State advocate Motsipa Seroto told the court that the 47-year-old mother of three deliberately betrayed the trust between herself and the complainant (SAPS).
“The offence was motivated by greed instead of need. It commenced on a reasonably modest scale, but increased in volume, frequency and boldness until uncovered.”
Carstens was responsible for safekeeping and payment of cash, safekeeping of the safe key, advancing cash to the police officials and / or authorised EFT onto the police official bank account as well as checking, capturing and paying advances and claims to suppliers. She was also responsible for receiving monies seized by police and depositing SAPS monies in the bank.
The State said she had authority to access the financial system for the purposes of capturing and processing standing advances (cash or EFT) from 14 non-accounting police stations.
She was allocated a unique and confidential number linked to her password in order to access the system.
“She devised a scheme in order to pilfer SAPS monies so that she could transmit these to her bank account and that of her co-accused. She claimed monies for travelling while not being authorised to travel at all, and claimed the standing advance for herself for purposes of attending a fictitious course. She approved these payments whilst using her supervisor’s password numbers without the latter’s knowledge nor permission,” said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
She also made similar claims for her colleague, who is co-accused in this case, using the same modus operandi.
“The monies claimed were deposited into her bank and that of her colleague. Carstens also claimed standing advances for fictitious travelling expenses and motor vehicle licence renewals using her colleagues’ details without their knowledge and on their behalf. As a result, R166 956 was misappropriated. She resigned immediately after her fraudulent scheme was uncovered,” said the NPA.
In her plea and sentencing agreement, Carstens told the court that the monies were transferred between April 9, 2018, and December 24 of the same year. She confessed that she gambled with the money as she was addicted to gambling at the time. Carstens fully reimbursed the SAPS.
Cape Times