The courts have slammed the hammer down on three suspects who claimed they could ‘multiply’ their victims pension money. The suspects have been held in custody since August 2017, they applied for bail but it was denied.
“Jimmy Peter (27) and Mohamed (57) and Brian Kibirigue (32)” were running a scam from January up until August 2017, the scammers sadly convinced a 63-year-old teacher from Lusikisiki to part with her pension scheme, to make the matter worse they even convinced her to leave her job as a teacher.
The scammers claimed they would provide “spiritual cleansing” which would enable the teacher’s ancestors to “multiply” her money. The woman victim left her job as a teacher to participate in a series of rituals which at the time she believed would multiply her money. It has been reported that she handed over R1.6 million of her pension, two of the scammers later fled to Port Elizabeth.
The greed sets in, they want more
The scammers were aware that the teacher had more money in her account and instructed her to withdraw it, in total she went ahead to withdraw R90,000. An informant became aware of the situation and alerted the Commercial Crime Investigation team and they made successful arrests against Sellwuju and Wamubirigue who were waiting outside the bank.
Wanting to take a break for the night
With the two arrests, this still left another scammer at large – The Hawks went on to notify the Police in Port Elizabeth about Kibirigue. They managed to track him down while he was making attempts to book into a guest house.
Sentencing
“Sellwuju and Wamubirigue were each sentenced to six-years imprisonment while Kibirigue was sentenced to 12-months imprisonment for fraud and theft. ” said Cpt Anelisa Ngcakani
The R1.6 million stolen from the teacher was returned.
