A woman, who asked not to be identified, said she met the man – who introduced himself as a Libyan national – in January at the Sandton Gautrain station.
According to the woman, he gave her an outlandish background story about himself, saying that he hailed from Libya, and that his father was a slain general in former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, adding that his mother and sisters had fled to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
“In February he went to update his papers at Home Affairs in Pretoria and when he returned he showed me his papers, which stated that he was an asylum seeker. I had no reason to mistrust this person, so when he asked me to assist him financially I had no doubt, as it seemed that he wanted to do everything legally here in South Africa. He told me that he got a job in Midrand in a laboratory and he was supposed to start working on 5 June,” she explained.
She said that the man had told her that he needed to pay for his car, an Audi A3, which was ostensibly at a panelbeater and also that he intended to sell it. The woman told him that she was interested in buying the car from him for R25 000.
“I gave him a total of R48 000 from which he was going to take the money for the car and the rest he was going to repay me back on 3 June. On that day (Monday) he told me that he would give me the money the following day. That Tuesday was the same story but still I had no doubt that he would pay me. On the Wednesday of the 5th, when I tried contacting him, his phone was off the whole day,” she added.
She said that this carried on until 8 June, when his cellphone went off and remains so to this day.
Police were not available for comment at the time of publication, but a case of theft under false pretense had been opened at the Sandton police station.
“I just want people out there to be wary of him as I will probably not be the last women that he cons out of money. Now looking back, I feel like a complete fool, but I know that from the depth of my heart I just wanted to help someone and to make a difference to one person,” lamented the victim.
