Cape Town - A former Captain in the South African Police will spend five years behind bars after she was convicted of over fifty counts of fraud and money laundering claiming she had a gambling problem.
Captain Sylvia Delores Carstens was sentenced on Friday in the Bellville Commercial Crimes Court to 10 years in jail, with five years suspended for five years on condition that she is not convicted of the same crime.
Spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority Eric Ntabazalila, said Carstens was employed at the Worcester Police Station as a finance clerk, and later promoted to Captain.
“Her responsibilities included safekeeping and payment of cash, safekeeping of the safe key, advance cash to the police officials and or authorised EFT onto the police official’ s bank account, checking, capturing and paying advances and claims to suppliers,” said Ntabazalila.
“She was also responsible for receiving monies seized by police and depositing police monies in the bank.”
Ntabazalila added the Captain would claim for travelling expenses when she did not have authority to travel and also for advances.
“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.”
“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,” said Ntabazalila.
He said she was allocated a unique and confidential number linked to her password in order to access the system, and devised a scheme in order to pilfer SAPS monies to transmit them to her bank account.
Carstens approved these payments using her supervisor’s personal and password numbers without the latter’s knowledge or permission,.
The convicted officer had made similar claims for her colleague and accused number two in the case.
“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.”
Ntabazalila said the Carstens claimed she had a gambling addiction problem and was a mother of three.
“In her plea and sentencing agreement, Carstens told the court that the monies were transferred between April 9, 2018 and December 24, 2018,” he added.
State Advocate, Motsipa Seroto, told the court the 47-year-old mother of three deliberately betrayed the trust between her and the complainant.
“The offence was motivated by greed instead of need. It commenced on a reasonable modest scale but increased in volume, frequency and boldness until uncovered”, he added.
Carstens has fully reimbursed the police.
Weekend Argus