A retired Polokwane teacher was duped out of R800,000 by a foreign partner who purported to love her and have ancestral abilities. The 60-year-old woman met the man at a shopping centre in January of this year, and they married soon after.
The guy enticed her into a room, claiming to present her to her relatives. “She heard a voice from nowhere informing her that she had been suffering for a long time, but her sorrow was gone because there was a sum of R3.8 million waiting for her,” said Matimba Maluleke, Hawks regional spokeswoman.
The man then continually begged her for money to unlock her inheritance, until she got suspicious and discovered he had vanished with her money. “The victim went to her lover’s leased property, and the neighbours informed her that they observed him packing his possessions onto a moving truck,” Maluleke explained.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Limpopo Hawks have cautioned South African women to be wary of dating scams that prey on single, divorced, bereaved, or retired women with secure employment, money, or companies.
To swindle their victims of their money and property, the fraudsters utilise phoney love, fraudulent business proposals, or bogus ancestral rites. “The prospective victims, especially well-to-do single/widowed ladies, are encouraged to be wary of fraudsters who enter their life in the name of love,” Maluleke added.
He claims that fraudsters target women who have just divorced and have obtained some money, women who own their own enterprises, and widows or those preparing to retire. “The suspect she was seeing constantly begging for money to redeem her riches” (R3.8 million). “The victim reportedly paid the suspect about R800,000 till she grew suspicious,” Maluleke said.
ADVERTISEMENT
