Local sleuths hunt down alleged chicken coop con men
It took a local police officer to hunt down three suspected con artists who had left a trail of victims across the country.
MBOMBELA – Ian Venter, his son Johannes Jacobus Venter (aka Ivan) and Johan Botha appeared in the Nelspruit District Court on charges of fraud and theft on Monday.
After a fraud case was opened in the city, Nelspruit police’s Sgt Michael Horn, together with Divergent Ops members Tobie du Preez and Jurie Grobler, followed their trail all the way to fake business addresses around Pretoria last Friday.
When they eventually found a valid one, the suspects were arrested.
The three have 32 cases of fraud against them countrywide, dating from 2016.
They allegedly targeted farming communities and defrauded them of more than R500 000.
Their activities were mainly focused on the Koster, Wakkerstroom, Gravelotte, Tzaneen, Pretoria and Rustenburg areas.
Victims had begun to lose hope for justice and had created a Facebook page named after the first business called “Securezy Scam”, in an attempt to warn others. There was also a WhatsApp group of over 32 members.
“I am so grateful to Horn. He did what no other policeman in the country could. He is a champion, as he finally got us justice,” said one member.
Marlene du Preez, from Mbombela, said last month, she had contacted the company Buildtron Structures after she saw an advert on a Facebook group for chicken coops.
“We wanted to place an order for four houses, but then only placed an order for one so we could first see the workmanship. Botha came down and they built the one. Then he convinced us to pay a deposit for the other three houses.”
From then on, Du Preez said she struggled to contact him. “They kept giving me excuses. Then the one day I saw on Facebook a page about Securezy Scam. After people started exposing the company as fraudulent on social media, they changed the business to Buildtron and after that was exposed, another company, ZA Steel & Construction, was advertised,” she said.
“I contacted the admin of the page, as I saw they exposed Buildtron as also being owned by the same people. I had lost over R20 000 in the deposit. There I found there were people complaining daily about them not getting their structures or deposits back. So I immediately went to open a police case.”
Police spokesman Lt Col Erhard Stroh confirmed that the three were still in custody and would appear for a bail application on Monday.
