Former Red Cross Hospital employee and supplier sentenced to 10 years in jail for fraud

A former Red Cross Hospital employee and a service provider have been slapped with 10-year jail sentences for fraud.

The former hospital employee, Ronald Rothman Rancke, and businessman Johann Willem Visser were sentenced in the Bellville serious commercial crime court on Thursday.

The two were found guilty of 24 counts of fraud and corruption that cost the hospital R86,000.

The court also granted a confiscation order for R50,000. Visser had already paid the amount into the criminal asset recovery account.

Hawks spokesperson Zinzi Hani said the directorate’s serious commercial crime unit arrested Rancke and Visser in 2021 after a forensic probe conducted by the hospital.  

“Visser stole just under R86,000 from the hospital in a corruption swindle that occurred between 2005 and 2009, perpetrated through him as a supplier to the Red Cross Hospital in Rondebosch by corrupting an employee in the procurement department to secure a tender for him and his company,” said Hani.

The sentence was suspended for five years but Rancke and Visser have to undergo three years of correctional supervision.

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