His mother, Magrietha Niehaus, 88, is in fact alive and living in a home for the elderly in Johannesburg, other Niehaus family members said.
Niehaus made up reams of what appears to be fraudulent correspondence and paperwork to back up his claim, including a series of e-mails between him and a fictitious “director” at Sanlam.
The company has confirmed the documents are fake and said it had referred the matter to its legal and forensics department for investigation.
Niehaus, who is a vocal campaigner for ANC presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has a history of lies and bad debt. He was caught in a similar scam in 2011 involving his father.
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