Johannesburg - Two Nigerian nationals who lived a lavish lifestyle, renting a Waterfall Estate property for R55 000 per month and a Bentley for R50 000, have been sentenced to eight years and seven years behind bars after they cloned a law firm’s email accounts and stole over R11m from clients.
Police are understood to have recovered just R700 000 in cash from the two.
The R700 000 they recovered was found in a closet at their luxury Waterfall Estate rented home, which they rented for over R55 000 per month.
Police also recovered alcohol worth R80 000 during the arrest of Nigerians Olatunji Samson Abdul and Adedayo Quandri, who both pleaded guilty to 24 charges of theft and fraud.
Abdul was sentenced to eight years behind bars, while Quandri was sentenced to seven years.
The alcohol seized was understood to be large quantities of premium cognac and champagne brands.
Police said they also seized expensive and sealed clothing items from Italian brands, including Prada and Gucci upon their arrest.
Abdul and Quandri cloned the email accounts of conveyancers DM5 and Yaron Waks, resulting in theft of over R11m.
Abdul and Quandri pleaded guilty on 24 theft counts, that include defrauding their clients, in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Palm Ridge.
Among their victim list is DM5 and Yaron Waks the conveyancers whose emails were cloned and the law firms handled property sales and registrations on behalf of its clients, Amogelang Holdings and Lesley Warther respectively.
The accused are said to have used spyware and viruses to monitor emails between the law firms and their clients (property traders) that were about to do/receive transfers from the conveyancers after their properties were sold.
The accused would then send their banking details to the conveyancers, as though these emails were from property traders, resulting in R7.8m and R4.2m being diverted to their accounts.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane said: “On 14 May 2019, DM5 received an e-mail purporting to be from Amohelang directing/instructing the company to transfer the proceeds of the sale of property worth R7 836 347.70 money due to Amohelang that was paid into a bank account belonging to Siphosihle Sithole, who was charged together with both accused but his trial was separated from that of the accused after he pleaded not guilty.”
Senior State advocate Frans Mhlongo argued that the victims of the scam were rendered financially hard-pressed, and the scam was targeted at Conveyancing law firms that handle large volumes of financial transactions.
“Our courts must protect members of our business community from this type of offence and failure to do so might lead to business entities disinvesting and leaving the country and a large section of our society destitute” said Mhlongo.
The court emphasised the devastating effect of these crimes on the affected entities/institutions.
“Amohelang Holdings has gone on to threaten liquidation proceedings against DM5 for the recovery of its proceeds of sale and Yaron Waks Attorneys have instituted civil proceedings against the Criminal Recovery Assets Unit to be compensated from the illicit funds recovered by the AFU and the funds stolen from the municipality could have been utilised for rendering services to its residents,” said Mjonondwane
The NPA has commended investigating officer Oscar Mopedi and advocate Frans Mhlongo for remaining committed to the course of justice.
IOL