KZN couple granted bail on charges of nearly R1 mln fraud

A man and woman from KwaZulu-Natal have been granted a bail of R5,000 by the Durban Magistrates’ Court this past weekend, following their appearance on fraud charges.

DURBAN, June 1 (ANA) – A man and woman from KwaZulu-Natal have been granted R5,000 (US$363) bail by the Durban magistrate’s court after their appearance on fraud charges relating to fake discount holiday deals.

Megasen Roland Chetty, aged 38, and 47-year-old Sarasvathi Belinda Pillay, who are reportedly a couple, were arrested on Saturday morning after allegedly posing as travel agents and committing fraud over the course of a year, KwaZulu-Natal regional police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said in a statement.

The two were positively linked to fourteen cases across the Chatsworth, Phoenix, Malvern, Town Hill, Tongaat and other areas, in which they would lure unsuspecting customers, promising to secure them domestic and international holidays at a discounted rate.

In all, they defrauded their supposed clients of around R900,000.

“The dockets opened were transferred to the provincial commercial crime investigation (unit) for further investigation,” Gwala said, urging members of the public to be wary of such schemes and for those who had fallen victim to such crimes to contact the police.

According to the South African edition of audit firm PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey for 2020, customer fraud in the country decreased for the first time in a decade but increased in value for the period ending March 2020.

“However, there was no surprise in the finding that bribery and corruption and financial statement fraud are still among the more prominent types of economic crime reported,” PWC South Africa partner in charge of forensic services, Trevor White said in a foreword to the report.

According to the study, South Africa moved to third place behind China and India on the global top ten rankings for countries with the highest reported cases of fraud.

– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa