IT IS December and scammers are not taking the festive season off.
While people are getting their stokvel money and planning how to enjoy the year’s savings, tsotsis are plotting to rob them.
On Tuesday, 20 December, a quick-thinking woman (42) managed to outwit a conman in Balfour, Mpumalanga, and alert the police of his tricks.
The woman told Daily Sun the man pretended to be a sangoma from Uganda and asked her for directions.
Suspecting nothing, she helped him and they ended up exchanging numbers.
“Not long after, we started communicating with each other,” she said, adding that the suspect ended up visiting her home.
“He overheard me and my friends talking about our stokvel savings,” she said.
The woman said the man told her they needed to go to the mountain so he could pray over the money before going to a river to cleanse it.
“He came with a box full of blank notes and asked me to bring him boiled water.”
The woman said he put the notes in the water and sprinkled some powder inside.
“The paper changed and looked like bank notes. I smelt a rat and quickly alerted the police, who found him at my house.”
Police spokesman Brigadier Selvy Mohlala said cops investigated and found a box full of blank notes in his car.
“Some of the blank notes were found with real R100 notes wrapped around them,” said Mohlala.
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The suspect was arrested and charged with fraud, and will be appearing in the Balfour Magistrates Court soon.
Mohlala said a charge of contravening the Immigration Act could also be added.
Provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Semakaleng Manamela praised the police for their speedy response.
