Cleaner accused of earlier theft

One of the two women hotel workers arrested for allegedly stealing from the Colombian soccer team was charged previously with taking foreign currency from a guest at a five-star hotel.

This emerged yesterday during the bail application in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court of Jeanet Mashimbyi and Lucky Mahlatsi, both from Zimbabwe.

The women were dismissed from the Hyde Park Southern Sun Hotel after allegedly stealing R24000 in US dollars and euros from the Colombian team soon after they arrived in South Africa last week.

The court was told that Mashimbyi had previously been arrested and charged after allegedly stealing US dollars from a guest at the five-star Westcliff hotel in Johannesburg, where she had worked as a cleaner.

Prosecutor Mieke Erasmus told the court that case had been withdrawn as the complainant left the country and did not testify against Mashimbyi.

But this, she said, was not the case with the Colombians.

Even though they have left South Africa - after playing a friendly match against Bafana - they were willing to return to testify against the women, Erasmus said.

Mashimbyi was employed by the Hyde Park hotel in March, while Mahlatsi had been employed by the Southern Sun group for five years.

The women are alleged to have used their access cards to gain entry to the players' rooms.

They were arrested after it was established they were the only ones who had been into the rooms.

It is alleged that Mashimbyi, who is said to have made a confession to the police last week, allegedly sold the foreign currency to a woman in Johannesburg.

Erasmus told the court the hotel would institute fraud charges against the accused.

The accused told magistrate Laura Ntoko they would deny the charges against them.

The court also heard that in 2008, a warrant for Mahlatsi's arrest was issued by the Edenvale Magistrate's Court. She allegedly gave police a different name and two identity numbers.

Ntoko postponed the bail application to June 9.