A group calling itself the Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Organising Committee has used Nelson Mandela’s name fraudulently, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) said on Friday.
NMCF spokesperson Oupa Ngwenya said these fraud suspects would tell unsuspecting people that they had won the Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Promotion held on July 18 2008.
They claimed to be from Mandela’s office in Sandton, acting on directions from chief executive Sibongile Mkhabela.
”Winners” were advised to call 073 934 7801 or to email [email protected] to claim their winnings.
Any calls to the number were met by the standard reply that Mkhabela was not in the office but that it was the right number for Nelson Mandela’s office.
However, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and its United Kingdom branch said that the fund neither ran a lottery nor was Mkhabela the coordinator of such a lottery.
Both Mandela’s and Sibongile Mkhabela’s names had been used fraudulently.
The address given by the fraud suspects was the correct address for the fund.
Police have been alerted and they have advised that anyone called by these people should report the matter.
The reason for the fraudulent use of the names was not clear, Ngwenya said.
However, the office had received a number of so-called 419 scam emails where a ”donor” said that he or she had donated R50 000 and had meant to donate less — and then requested the fund to refund the difference.
The fund did not respond to such emails.
Individuals who phoned the number given by the fraud suspects were, however, asked to respond to the [email protected] email address. Replying to the address could possibly open respondents’ computers and email addresses to spam or other email and internet crimes.
A copy of the fraud suspects’ email was sent to the fund by a private citizen who had become suspicious.
All details of the fraud were given to Rosebank police who were investigating.
It was not known how much damage had done.
They appeared to be targeting UK citizens in their scheme, Ngwenya said. — Sapa