Cape Town – A 52-year-old suspect was arrested by the Hawks' Serious Commercial Crime Investigation on Wednesday for alleged fraud.
The suspect is employed by the Maquassi Hills Municipality in North West as a technician, the Hawks said in a statement on Thursday.
“He allegedly approached a client whose municipal account was in arrears of approximately R1 million and offered to cancel the debt in exchange of a payment of R112 000,” the Hawks said.
’’The matter was reported to the Hawks and the suspect was arrested during an operation after he was found in possession of the R112 000 which was paid to him by the client.’’
He was due to appear at the Wolmaransstad Magistrate's Court on Thursday.
Last month, a 49-year-old official attached to the office of Budget and Treasury at the Newcastle Municipality was released on R50 000 bail following her arrest for alleged R3 million fraud
A Hawks preliminary investigation revealed Dedre van Rooyen van Rooyen had allegedly been withdrawing a second salary from her employer between February 2012 to June 2020, which were additional undue payments over and above her ordinary salary.
During this period, Van Rooyen was responsible for payroll functions, which included the payment of salaries from the bank using Payroll System.
She was one of the supervisors that oversaw the day-to-day running of the salaries for the municipality.
Van Rooyen allegedly manipulated the payroll system in order to make salary payments in respect of former employees who were no longer working at the municipality.
The case against Van Rooyen was postponed to December 1 pending further investigations.
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