When an employee at a special needs school was asked by her colleague to scan some private documents for him, she thought nothing of it and happily agreed to his request.
A month later, as she was clearing her inbox folder she came across an email she had sent the scanned documents to and, curious, decided to take a look. What she found would ultimately lead to her colleague not only losing his job but also in the dock for fraud amounting to just more than R6m.
This colleague was Ralton Christopher Fischer, who in October 2023 pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud relating to his employment as a payroll officer at New Hope School in Pretoria between 2017 and 2022.
The fraud took place a year into his employment. Fischer admitted to paying ghost employees to fuel his “serious gambling addiction”.
The 32-year-old was able to steal the money due to the “full authority” he had over the school's payroll system.
“Among his duties was [to make] payments to staff members who were paid by the school governing body (SGB) and not the Gauteng department of education,” the state said in the charge sheet.
Instead of doing this, Fischer redirected some of these funds to 11 bank accounts linked to him.
The bulk of these payments, about R2.9m, was made to his Absa-linked accounts over four years. The second largest tranche, just more than R1m, was paid to his Nedbank account over three years.
Fischer explained how he carried out his criminal activities in his plea explanation.
“During this period, I noticed that there were still staff members on the payroll who had in fact already left the school. I decided to continue with the payment of their salaries as if they were still in the employ of the school.
“I changed their bank account details to that of my own and caused the payments to be made into my own accounts. As I had a serious gambling addiction, I needed the money to fuel this addiction and did over a period of three to four years cause R6,093,640 to be paid into my accounts,” he said.
Fischer's criminal activities came to an end after his colleague noticed “two different bank statements” in the documents he had asked her to scan.
As I had a serious gambling addiction, I needed the money to fuel this addiction and did over a period of 3-4 years cause R6,093,640 to be paid into my accounts.
— Ralton Fischer in his plea explanation
She further saw “two different transactions in the Absa and Discovery Bank accounts with two references [labelled]New Hope salaries” dated April 21 2022.
“These transactions were suspicious to her and she in turn informed her colleague. [This] then led to a preliminary investigation,” the state revealed.
A forensic auditor was then roped in and uncovered the massive scale of his crimes, the Gauteng department of education said.
“Disciplinary processes were instituted, and Fischer was found guilty of fraud and subsequently dismissed in September 2022. Furthermore, a case was also registered at Brooklyn police station's fraud and investigation unit [hence] this matter is before court,” spokesperson Steve Mabona told TimesLIVE Premium.
Mabona confirmed that the school was unable to recover the stolen funds but has since appointed “a consultant to administer the payroll” system.
Fischer is due to be sentenced on Thursday in the Pretoria specialised commercial crimes court.
