She was a trusted employee - but now the finance manager of a Durban steel company is serving 10 years behind bars for defrauding her employer out of R4.8m.
Vinola Naidoo, 41, on Thursday entered into a plea bargain agreement, brokered through state advocate Joel Kisten, in which she admitted to her crimes.
Her proffered 10-year sentence was signed off by Durban special commercial crimes court magistrate Mapaseka-Beelinah Phooko-Base.
Naidoo worked for Channel Construction, first as an assistant finance manager and later as the finance manager from 2016 until 2020 when she resigned.
It was only then that her bosses undertook a detailed investigation into all company records, discovering that many had been disposed of or destroyed by Naidoo.
However, what was left of the paper trail showed that Naidoo had created false payment invoices, which she then paid into her own bank account through on-line banking.
Naidoo, a mom of two who hails from Phoenix, was eventually arrested in early 2023. She was granted bail.
She was charged with 55 counts of fraud and one of money laundering.
In her written plea, she said she and her now ex-husband had separated in 2015 as he was physically abusive and a drug addict. She said all the financial responsibilities then fell on her shoulders. Her husband did not pay his share of the bond and the family home had been repossessed in 2017.
Up to her eyes in debt, she turned to family and friends, but they could not help her.
It was then that she started committing the fraud.
She logged on to the company’s banking system and removed genuine suppliers’ banking details, substituting them with her own details.
She said she loaded payments onto the system and then submitted a schedule and supporting documents to her bosses for verification. She then authorised the payments to herself.
Naidoo said she used the money to support herself and her family.
Naidoo admitted, in her plea, that she had one previous conviction for fraud for which she received a suspended sentence.
However, she said, in the present matter she had not wasted the court’s time, had accepted responsibility and had shown “genuinely remorsement”.
“Considering the multiplicity of documentation, the volumes of evidence to be led, the number of state witnesses and the cost implications of this” her plea of guilty had saved the state and herself the considerable expense of a protracted trial, she said.
However, she conceded that the offences were “particularly serious and prevalent” in general. The effective 10-year sentence would serve as a deterrent to other like-minded offenders.
Up until Tuesday, Naidoo had spent only one night in prison after her arrest.
She walked stoically down the stairs to the cells underneath the court, to begin her sentence.
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