Customer loses over R 800K after making a sim swop in Hammanskraal
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What was meant to be an innocent sim swop for a customer led to a heavy theft of over R 820K through an unauthorized bank transfers through a banking app.
It Is alleged that in April 2016, a 32 years old Tshepo Solomon Makatu who was an employee for a cellphone company at Jubilee Mall, Hammanskraal at the time, defrauded the complainant by assisting unknown people to do a sim swop on the complainant’s cellphone that was used for internet banking without knowledge nor consent from the complainant.
Few days later, Makatu accessed the complainant’s banking app where he added two beneficiaries to the complainant’s bank account profile. The amount of R820 000 – 00 was then fraudulently transferred from the complainant’s account to an unknown bank account and subsequently laundered into various bank accounts unknown to the complainant.
The 31 years old Unathi Golimpi was only arrested March, 22nd, 2024 following an operation conducted by the Klerksdorp based Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team at Soshanguve.
Following further investigations, Makatu and three other accused namely Thabo Zwane (31), Lwazi Mzilem (33) and Zitha Makitla (38) were arrested in January 2024, thus Golimpi was the outstanding suspect. They were later granted R7000-00 bail and their case is still ongoing.
The matter was postponed to 05 April 2024 for formal bail application.
