{"id":386,"date":"2007-06-25T07:43:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-25T05:43:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-06-25T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-25T05:43:00","slug":"cellphone-fraud-syndicate-targets-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/386-cellphone-fraud-syndicate-targets-doctors.html","title":{"rendered":"Cellphone fraud syndicate targets doctors"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is believed that the syndicate then uses this information and false identity documents to obtain top-of-the-range cellphones which are later resold on the black market. <\/font><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, members of the Scorpions and the police's commercial branch visited Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane to obtain statements from doctors from whose salaries deductions have been made. <\/font><\/p>\n

This followed after doctors contacted the two law enforcement agencies when they noticed irregular salary deductions by cellphone companies. <\/font><\/p>\n

Commercial branch Superintendent Jericho Sani said two unemployed people from Mthatha have already been arrested in connection with a similar scam involving salary details from teachers. <\/font><\/p>\n

Boniwe Mnukwa and Malusi Nompozolo were arrested in Mthatha and have already appeared in court on charges of fraud. <\/font><\/p>\n

They are being held in custody pending bail applications later this month. <\/font><\/p>\n

Sani said police have also confiscated teachers' salary advice slips and bogus IDs in connection with the case. <\/font><\/p>\n

He said East London commercial branch Inspector Neil Hoffmann will visit Mthatha next week to compare details of the two cases. <\/font><\/p>\n

Hoffmann confirmed that police have been receiving complaints from doctors about the scam on a daily basis. <\/font><\/p>\n

He said at this stage complaints have been received from doctors working at the Cecilia Makiwane and Frere hospitals and the hospital in Stutterheim. <\/font><\/p>\n

The investigation by the Scorpions has now been handed over to the commercial branch. <\/font><\/p>\n

The bogus contracts with Vodacom<\/a>, Cell-C<\/a>, Nashua Mobile and MTN<\/a> were concluded on the strength of the salary payslips of doctors as well as false identity documents. <\/font><\/p>\n

Photographs had been replaced and minor changes made to the information on the documents. <\/font><\/p>\n

One doctor, who wants to remain anonymous, said the quality of the fraudulent documents was "shocking". <\/font><\/p>\n

He said one doctor had deductions for three cellphone contracts made on his salary slip. <\/font><\/p>\n

Doctors, however, were instructed by the hospital authorities not to discuss the issue as an internal investigation was under way. <\/font><\/p>\n

Health Department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said he was not aware of the present scam. <\/font><\/p>\n

He said, however, that it appears to be similar to another scam that surfaced in the Kokstad area some time ago, when salary payslips of about 50 department employees had been stolen. <\/font><\/p>\n

Kupelo said bogus life insurance policies were then concluded in the names of these employees. <\/font><\/p>\n

He urged any department employee who has become victim to the latest scam to contact the department's risk management office. <\/font><\/p>\n

The manager of a cellphone store in Oxford Street, East London, where one of the employees alerted police to some of the incidents, would not speak to the press. <\/font><\/p>\n

Comments<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police are hot on the heels of a syndicate that has been illegally accessing salary advice details of state doctors and teachers to conclude fraudulent rental contracts with major cellphone companies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cellular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}