EASTERN CAPE - A 20 year old African male from Alexandra in Johannesburg will appear in Grahamstown Magistrate Court in the Eastern Cape for allegations of fraud after his arrest on 7 April 2022 by Gqeberha based Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team.

It is alleged that Whiteside attorneys in Grahamstown received instructions from Remax Properties to attend to a property transfer between the buyer and the seller .The attorneys are alleged to have requested banking details from the buyer via email. The email was reportedly returned with wrong banking details purporting it was from the buyer. The attorneys after receiving the email with the account details allegedly deposited more than R236 000-00 into an account as provided on the email.

The transfers could not be finalised due to the alleged non - payment by attorneys. This led to the lodging of the complaint to Gqeberha Serious Commercial Crime investigation team for probing which culminated in the arrest of the Gauteng Alexandra resident on 7 April 2022. The offence is alleged to have been committed on 30 March 2021. Allegations are that somehow the suspect intercepted the email account of the victim and diverted the funds to another bank account.

The suspect is expected to make his first court appearance in Grahamstown Magistrate court today.

Source: South African Police Service