The accused; Malefu Mary Mokoena (22), Maneo Paulina Mokoena (45), Mannini Elizabeth Mphetheng (45), and Tumelo Isaac Moeletsane (35) appeared before the Harrismith Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 21 October 2022 where they were sentenced for gang-related cases, fraud, identity theft, attempted murder, kidnapping, and money laundering.
On 19 November 2019, the suspects at the time were arrested in Phuthadithjaba by the Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation team, Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team all based in Bethlehem and Crime Intelligence (CI) based in Bethlehem and Phuthadithjaba after they had taken a corpse at Phuthadithjaba forensic pathology services.
Investigation was then conducted by the Hawks where they discovered that the accused were taking policies with different insurance companies and later they will go to different government mortuaries and identify those people as the people they covered on their policies.
After taking these corpses, they will then go and claim the policies using fake identity.
It was discovered that they were also kidnapping people and claimed that a person is dead in order for them to claim from the policies.
The amount of policies that the accused persons claimed from the insurance companies is estimated at R430 000-00. These incidents took place during the period of 2017 until December 2019.
The court sentenced Maneo Paulina Mokoena to 16 years direct imprisonment and Malefu Mary Mokoena was sentenced to five years direct imprisonment.
Both Mphetheng and Moeletsane were sentenced to eight years direct imprisonment.
