Female allegedly ‘duped’ into fraud by a friend
ALEXANDRA – Two female frauds suspects blame their offence on Mr Brown.
Two female frauds suspects were granted bail and their case was remanded by the Alexandra Magistrates’ Court to 30 January next year.
They are charged with defrauding a Midrand based company of R172 500. They allegedly pretended to be suppliers of engineering equipment based in Cape Town. The company ordered hydraulic cylinders from them and they asked for payment in advance promising to deliver the items within 48 hours. The amount was paid into one of the women’s accounts and the two withdrew it and allegedly gave R97 000 to someone, seemingly the mastermind, in the scheme. They used the balance for shopping. When there was no delivery, the defrauded company called and followed up with an email to no avail. The company owner went to their Cape Town address only to find a building with a ‘to let’ sign.
The matter was reported and investigations traced the account to one of the women, leading to their arrest. In mitigation, the account holder claimed to have been used by the accomplice who in turn admitted to the offence. She claimed to have been a proxy to a man she only named Mr Brown further saying he used her before on similar schemes.
