DURBAN – Intensive investigations by police detectives at Durban Central made a breakthrough when four suspects were nabbed in connection with the Master of High Court fraud in which deceased persons’ estates were swindled by fraudsters.
In July 2022, a woman went to the Master of High Court to register a claim for her late son, but she was perplexed when she was told that her son’s R700 000-00 estate had already been successfully claimed by a person who masqueraded as the deceased’s biological father. The matter was reported to the police and after several months of investigations, police pounced on four suspects on Friday, 18 August 2023.
Zinhle Msomi (42), Lorraine Ndlovu (44), Zanele Hlengwa (45) and Nkosinathi Moya (62) were arrested in Durban and were remanded in custody when they made their first appearance in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday, 18 August 2023. Investigations revealed that the culprits would submit fictitious documents to the Master of the High Court and sought a letter of authority, so that they could fraudulently claim deceased persons estate. The four suspects will be in the dock again on 25 August 2023.
In another fraud case, the detectives also worked tirelessly investigating a case of a woman who was defrauded of R120 000-00 by a lawyer in July 2021. The woman was in the process of buying a property and she employed the services of a lawyer who convinced her to deposit the money into his Trust Account. After receiving the money the lawyer vacated his office in Prince Street in Umgeni. Two years after the case was reported, the lawyer, 34-year-old Mzamaleni Ntuli was arrested on Friday, 18 August 2023 and appeared in court on the same day.
Content retrieved from: https://www.saps.gov.za/newsroom/msspeechdetail.php?nid=47928.
