Absa employees found guilty of stealing millions

Themba Mafunyeka, 28, and Evans Thwala, 34, will be sentenced on July 20. Charges against their five alleged accomplices were withdrawn, Lowvelder reported.

The duo had pulled off the theft by changing the ATMs’ access combination codes in Mbombela’s CBD on March 27 and 28 last year. The city centre’s ATMs ran out of cash shortly thereafter, which led to an investigation by the police’s War Room tracking team with the Absa Barclays Africa Security Division of Serious and Violent Crime Investigation and Information. CCTV camera footage portrayed the two suspects walking out of the bank with bags full of cash.

Mafunyeka and Thwala had reportedly been travelling from Mbombela to Middelburg when they were apprehended on April 1, 2014. Officials recovered a total of R121 000 stashed in the suspects’ carry bags. They were interviewed by the police and later led authorities to their five accomplices, who were also arrested.

Bundles of cash were allegedly found in the possession of Messrs Tsepho Tsela, 29, Phulani Lekhuleni, 29, Happy Mashego, 33, Given Mafunyaka, 30, and Mzamo Rose Thwala, 30.

The five were apprehended in Masoyi, Pienaar and KaBokweni after law enforcement reportedly came across cash hidden in their homes. A source close to the investigation recalled that money had been hidden in cupboards and under beds and other furniture.

A total of R3.1 million was recovered. A total of R800 000 had been lent to a businessman, who was not aware the money had been stolen and had previously agreed to pay back the whole amount. He would have testified for the state, but the case against the remaining five accused was provisionally withdrawn last Monday. The state indicated it would continue with the case if further investigations warranted further prosecution.

In October last year, a former Standard Bank employee was found guilty of fraud and stealing more than R2.7 million in the Nelspruit Regional Court.

The woman, identified as Marilize Stins, had been employed at the bank’s processing department in Rocky’s Drift, near White River, in Mpumalanga, where her job entailed transferring money between accounts.

Stins’ affidavit, which accompanied her guilty plea, relayed details of how she transferred money into her bank account and that of her son, husband and mother.

One of Standard Bank’s forensic auditors had confronted Stins with these allegations in March 2010 when she admitted to stealing the bank’s money.

– Caxton News Service