Sandile Kagiso Mantsoe, the man serving a 32-year jail term for the brutal murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Karabo Mokoena, is safely behind bars — despite swelling social media posts of people claiming to have seen him as a free man on the streets of South Africa.
Spokesperson for the Justice and Correctional Services Department, Chrispin Phiri dismissed the allegations on social media platform X, insisting that the killer is locked up at Standerton Correctional Centre in Mpumalanga.
“At about 4.35pm we asked for an assurance that offender Sandile Kagiso Mantsoe is still in custody. Mantsoe was sentenced to 20 years for murder and still has an outstanding case,” said Phiri.
“Confirmation: he is at Standerton Correctional Centre with other further charged offenders to make a total of eight in the cell. He is at the centre and he never went out today. His next court appearing date is October 18, in Evander Court.”
Numerous social media users were alleging that Mantsoe had “pulled a Thabo Bester” in reference to the escape by the man dubbed the Facebook rapist from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein.
Bester, with help from different people, escaped the prison after staging his own fiery “death” in his cell at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022.
For almost a year, the notorious Facebook rapist, Bester lived the life of a free man in upmarket Joburg suburbs after escaping from prison.
He lived a high life with his celebrity doctor girlfriend Dr Nandipha Magudumana, as they lived in a R12m Hyde Park property, which they rented for over R40,000 per month.
In April, Bester and Magudumana were brought back to South Africa after they were found in Tanzania.
In September last year, IOL reported that trial of convicted and sentenced murderer, Mantsoe, on new charges of defrauding unwitting investors through his Trillion Dollar Legacy investment scheme, had begun in a Mpumalanga court.
Mantsoe, who is the sole director of Trillion Dollar Legacy, is accused of luring unsuspecting government employees into investing R2 million into his company.
The alleged fraud crimes happened two years before Mantsoe was arrested for fatally stabbing his 22-year-old ex-girlfriend, Karabo Mokoena, and burning her body in a field in Joburg in 2018.
In August last year, Mantsoe appeared before the Evander Regional Court in Mpumalanga on charges of fraud after being subpoenaed while serving his sentence – the effective 32 years behind bars – at the then privately managed Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein.
IOL