Cape Town - A female fraudster has been sentenced to direct imprisonment by the Bellville Specialised Serious Commercial Crimes Court.
Cynthia Pela entered into a plea and sentencing agreement with the State and was convicted on three counts of fraud for presenting cloned RCS cards and using them as payments.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Western Cape provincial spokesperson for the SAPS Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (Hawks), Zinzi Hani, said the court sentenced Pela to five years’ direct imprisonment on Tuesday.
Pela was arrested by members of the Hawks’ Commercial Crimes investigation team in October 2019.
On her arrest, she was found in possession of a suspected cloned card during a purchase she made at a Game store in the Tygervalley shopping mall in Cape Town.
Hani said officers linked Pela to various incidents around the province.
“The Hawks investigation positively linked her to similar incidents in various shops around the Western Cape. Furthermore, the Hawks’ probe revealed that Pela was armed with fake identity documents during the purchases as a cover up to hide her real identity and to match the names on the cards,” she said.
After her initial release on bail, Pela absconded on two occasions without any explanation to the court. The court then ordered a warrant of arrest for her.
“Her sentence yesterday follows a series of court appearances in the Bellville Specialised Serious Commercial Crimes Court which resulted in the effective five-year jail term imposed on her,” Hani said.
IOL