Two Western Cape municipal employees have been jailed for burial site fraud.
The Mossel Bay magistrate's court sentenced Megan Kim Abdul, 34, and Francis Siphokazi Majola, 51, to five years behind bars on Friday.
Hawks spokesperson Zinzi Hani said the former Mossel Bay municipality employees manipulated the purchase of burial sites. Hani said the two were arrested by the Hawks’ serious commercial crime investigation team in 2018, having pocketed R138,000.
“Abdul and Majola were involved in changing the status of burial erfs purchased by funeral undertakers from a standard burial to an indigent burial or a cremation, and other related irregularities, without the funeral undertaker being aware of the changes,” said Hani.
“The Hawks’ intricate investigation revealed that these multiple fraudulent incidents happened between July 2016 to April 2018. The duo instructed municipal cashiers to give them the difference and pocketed the cash for personal gain.”
Two years of their sentence was suspended for five years.
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