KWAZULU-NATAL – Today, 26 July 2022, KZN Hawks members tasked to investigate Covid-19 fraud cases arrested eight suspects aged between 22 and 53 for fraud, corruption and money laundering.

It is alleged that two of the arrested suspects are directors of the companies that applied for Temporary Employee Relief Scheme for their employees. They allegedly added number of employees who were not working for their companies, as a result Department of Labour suffered a loss of more than R2.4 million.

Two cases of fraud were reported at Durban Central police station and case dockets were allocated to the Hawks members for intensive investigation. Preliminary investigation revealed that one of the department’s employee received cash from the suspect and she was also arrested.

They are expected to appear in the Durban Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Wednesday, 27 July 2022.

Source: South African Police Service