DURBAN - A 28-year-old man is being held in custody in Durban after he was arrested for alleged extortion on Saturday by South African Police Service (SAPS) officers from the KwaZulu-Natal provincial organised crime unit and Durban Metropolitan Police in Berea in the city, the SAPS in KwaZulu-Natal said.
"It is alleged that the man pretended to be the municipality mayor and offered a woman a tender where she will be paid more than a million rand on condition that she pay R200 000 in cash up front," KwaZulu-Natal SAPS spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele said in a statement on Sunday.
The woman was also allegedly "promised to be the first lady after the deal has been secured", Mbele said.
However, the woman later became suspicious and reported the incident to police officers after she was instructed to put the cash into a plastic bag and wait for further instructions at a local minibus taxi rank.
Police intercepted the suspect after he had retrieved the cash which he had instructed the woman to place into a garbage bin at the minibus taxi rank. The cash that he had retrieved from the bin was recovered in his possession.
He was taken to the Durban Central Police Station for processing and to be charged. He was charged with extortion and he would appear in the Durban Magistrates' Court on Monday, Mbele said.
- African News Agency (ANA), editing by Jacques Keet