FREE STATE – Gaaitsiwe Petronella Mota (55), Ntiea Jeminah Taole (57) and Mponeng Florence Mabina (51) appeared at Bloemfontein Regional court for sentencing on several charges of fraud yesterday.
The trio were found guilty on all charges and were each sentenced to to five years imprisonment for fraud, moreover, a three years suspended sentence was imposed on each of the trio on an additional charge of POCA.
The convicts were employed as sales personnel at one of the prominent furniture store in Branford. The investigation carried out by the Hawks showed that over the period between 10 October 2008 until 03 December 2008 they fraudulently created fictitious purchase agreements in order to obtain the stock mentioned on the agreements, for personal gain.
Consequently, their employer was prejudiced and suffered a total loss of R308 223. They were arrested on 28 May 2015 following the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime investigation team.
Meanwhile on a separate and unrelated matter, Tsholofelo Elizabeth Modibedi (27) was sentenced by the Kroonstad Commercial Crime Court yesterday,16 March 2020 for defrauding the church a total amount of R 689 000.00.
Modibedi was on 30 August 2019 arrested by the Hawks’ serious Commercial Crime Investigation team following the an investigation into the illegal transfer of funds from the church bank account to a personal private bank. At the time of the incident on 11 June 2019, Modibedi was employed by the church.
She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years with stringent conditions.
