Thousands down the drain

The scam is believed to have cost businesses thousands of rands.

The main target has been companies located in the towns of Bethlehem and QwaQwa, but a Kroonstad businessman has also allegedly been swindled.

Now there are fears that the criminals might have hit businessmen in other provinces.

The local government and housing spokesperson, Senne Bogatsu, said last week that three men who masqueraded as senior officials from the department approached owners of companies and informed them that they had won RDP housing construction contracts each worth R23m.

The gang allegedly duped the companies with fake contracts that bear the department's outdated logo.

They then requested registration fees to secure the tenders.

Moleko Mofokeng, a director in the department, said they did not ask entrepreneurs who won housing tenders to pay registration fees to secure contracts.

He added that the department got wind of the scam in December.

Embarrassed

A group of businessmen came to the department's offices to collect appointment letters.

It was only once they had inquired about the contract they thought they had won that they realised they had been conned.

"It was brought to our attention by one of our officials and at that time we decided to hand the matter over to our anti-corruption unit to investigate," said Mofokeng.

"Subsequently, a number of complaints came in," he added.

After the anti-corruption unit's investigation the matter was reported to the police.

Mofokeng said that although a large number of entrepreneurs fell victim to the scam, only four of them had come forward.

Others refused to provide their details as they did not believe what the department was telling them.

Some businessmen who reported the matter were too embarrassed to disclose exactly how much money had been lost, but Mofokeng believed the amounts ranged between R6 000 and R200 000.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Motantsi Makhele confirmed that the police were investigating three cases of fraud worth R360 000.

No arrests have been made.

'A long time ago'

"We are busy extracting information from the victims that will help us identify the gang members," he said.

He added: "Although we suspect that this criminal activity started a long time ago, the matter was only reported to us in June."

When City Press Business tried to contact the victims, only two were prepared to be interviewed.

The owner of Blazeco 100, Lilian Scheepers, said her company lost R6 000 to the scam.

Scheepers, who has been in the construction industry for more than 20 years, said the three men paid a visit to her business offices earlier this year.

They informed her and her partners that their company had won a tender to build RDP houses in Welkom.

"These three men asked us to meet them in Bloemfontein. They promised that the awarding of the contract would be finalised," she said.

"We gave the three men a call when we arrived in Bloemfontein. They instructed us to deposit R6 000 into a bank account," she said.

Vanished

After Scheepers and her partners deposited the money, the men vanished, switching off their phones.

Scheepers and her partners went to the local government and housing department offices.

When they arrived, an official told them that the names of the three men did not appear on the list of employees, and added that the logo on those contracts was old.

When City Press Business contacted Shane Oosthuizen, owner of EG Industries in Kokstad, he initially refused to comment.

Oosthuizen reasoned that, as the gang had all his personal details in its possession, he might be attacked if he spoke to the media.

He later changed his mind and said that he drove up to Bloemfontein to meet the gang. They told him to fork out a R2 000 consultation fee.

He met the gang three times. Each time he had to pay the fee of R2 000.

"I stopped seeing these guys when I heard that they were operating a scam," said Oosthuizen.

- City Press