NELSPRUIT – A serial fraudster gets a slap on the wrist from the court. This after Louis Hechroodt pleaded guilty to five charges of fraud.
Hechroodt appeared in the Nelspruit district court on Wednesday. Investigating officer Sgt Gerrie le Grange said “He received a R3000 fine or 12 months suspended for five years. “I am disappointed with the outcome.”
Hechroodt was arrested and detained in custody since the beginning of the last month.
He was apprehended on October 5. He had committed fraud to the value of R50 000 against BUCO, a building material supplier, where he had been working as a workshop manager for the past three months.
He failed to pay suppliers, pocketing the money instead. Of the total, he has apparently repaid approximately R11 000 to BUCO.
Hechroodt has a history of fraud. In April, he was rearrested for a 2010 case against him in Linden, Johannesburg, where he had forged proof of payments with a company.
In March, his former employer, Sharp, also had charges against him after he had sold stock and kept the money.
In February, he was rearrested after he had forged payment to a vehicle company. At that time, he was out on bail on three previous cases of fraud and one case of theft of a docket against him.
One of his previous charges was for forging evidence of Internet payments to buy tickets to the value of R18 400 for the Innibos Festival in 2012. The others were from Xerox and another vehicle company.
He was also had stolen one of the police dockets on him out of a prosecutor’s office.
