A Durban father and his son were arrested in connection with a scam involving unauthorised R99 debit orders that caused bank clients to collectively lose R18 million, the Hawks said on Tuesday. Ravenda Singh, 50, and his son Andrew, 26, directors of Durban-based call centre Sub User, were arrested in Johannesburg last week Wednesday.
Captain Ndivhuwo Mulamu, the Hawks spokesperson said “the duo handed themselves over to the Hawks’ serious commercial crime investigation unit in Johannesburg last week and were both subsequently charged with fraud. On the very same day the pair appeared at the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crimes Court and were each granted R30 000 bail.”
Mulamu said the suspects were liked through a forensic investigation which was conducted by the banks, which discovered that there were undue debit orders through the suspects’ call-centre companies.
“The accused allegedly created a fraudulent bank payment system to collect debit orders for call centres which resulted in unauthorised debit orders. Numerous clients from several banks countrywide, reportedly lost their hard-earned cash through the R99 debit order withdrawn fraudulently between November 2018 and February 2019,” Mulamu said.
Their case was postponed to 27 May where they will join co-accused Jason Foster, 39, and Richard Marsden, 51, who were previously released on bail of R30 000 and R100 000 respectively. Foster was arrested at the Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport in February this year, while Marsden was arrested and taken into custody at the Cape Town International Airport last year.
Source: News24, The Citizen, The South African, IOL, Sowetan Live, image from News24