Rafadi said it is strange when the victims of crime allege they had not made any prior arrangements to withdraw large amounts, but were handed the money, often times while they were being escorted by the criminals.

“The reason why some of these people (bank officials) do not even report these transactions which are tantamount to money laundering, it turns out to be negligence on the part of tellers or bank managers. Once a bank has become aware of suspicious transactions, or large amounts being withdrawn in cash, they must report to the Financial Intelligence Centre,” he said.

“If the banks did not do so, should they be found guilty by the banking ombudsman for failure to report, there is a fine of up to R100 million or jail time. The crime syndicates make sure they have a connection with some of the tellers and the bank managers, just for the bank officials to look the other side and not report such transactions. The bank officials enable the money to be withdrawn in a short space of time.”

He said it is questionable, as some of the victims allege, that they were escorted into the banks by the criminals. In one case, a woman insists that after withdrawing large amounts of money, the cash was not handed to her, but the FNB officials allegedly handed the money to the criminals – who they seemed familiar with.

Rafadi said by escorting the victims into the banks, the criminals will be directing the besieged women to specific tellers and managers who they work with behind the scenes.

“The bank officials are under the belief that there will not be a come-back because of the stigma around the reporting of romance scams. Most of the victims are scared or deeply embarrassed to report the cases to the police. Remember, in these cases, some of the criminals have the women’s naked pictures or compromising information so the victims are also blackmailed against reporting to authorities.

“Women run the risk of having their money stolen, and at the same time they are blackmailed. The women who have managed to report these cases have been very bold. We see that the women who are reporting to the Hawks 419 scams unit are a lot.”

Refilwe said she was taken to FNB branches in Joburg on three different days in one week and she managed to withdraw R2 million in cash – without making any appointment.

“I met the scammer Jacob in February 2022, and I was scammed in April 2023. I had received R2.5 million as proceeds from sales of my property in Rustenburg on March 29, 2023. I had bought the property from my pension fund. The property was valued at R4 million, but I was persuaded by the scammer boyfriend to sell the property for only R2.5 million,” she said.

The 67-year-old woman said she was persuaded to sell her Rustenburg property so that she could buy a new property in Johannesburg. The Joburg property which Refilwe was enticed with, could also be used for business.

“On April 3, 2023, I was then invited by the scammers to come to Johannesburg to kick start the process of buying the Joburg property. When I arrived in Joburg, my boyfriend, Jacob, who I had met on a Christian dating site CDFF (Christian Dating for Free) came and fetched me after I was dropped by a taxi,” she said.