Wonder Hlongwa
A Nigerian syndicate defrauding Durban businesspeople and professionals has been identified by the police, and three of its members have been arrested.
The suspects had, on several occasions, approached wealthy people and offered to double their money through various schemes. After raiding the suspects’ house, detectives recovered a large amount of counterfeit notes.
Kevin Ogden-Price of Durban’s commercial crime unit believes that people have been defrauded of millions of rands but are afraid to report to police because they fear they may implicate themselves.
The syndicate uses three tactics to siphon money from their victims. One of these is called “wash-wash”.
“Wash-wash is when they take your money, for example a R100 note, coat it with chemicals and put it between two blank pages,” explains Ogden- Price. “After few minutes, you wash out the chemicals and you have three R100 notes, almost genuine.”
Another tactic is to entice victims to buy “expensive” diamond jewellery at a cheaper price.
“Normally they say because they are illegals, they can’t sell the stones in this country. They send people to an evaluator, who is normally a locally recruited white man. The evaluator will say the `stones’ are worth hundreds of thousands. And the client buys the stones to find that they are useless,” says Ogden-Price.
They also uses the “black dollar” tactic. A dollar is coated in ink and people are asked to buy a chemical to remove the ink. They promise to share the dollars, but disappear. The price of the chemical ranges from R150 000 to R300 000.
This week three businessmen were robbed of R270 000 in separate incidents.
Police believe the syndicate moved to Durban from Cape Town, where they defrauded a number of government officials and business- people. They refused to name the officials.
One of the syndicate members, Panther Gasela, who has been identified by the police as the “mastermind”, is believed to be hiding in Johannesburg. Another member, who is awaiting trial at Durban’s Westville prison, claims he is a police informer. Police have denied this.