ANC MP Zukisa Faku has opened a criminal case against her 25-year-old nephew who allegedly opened a fake Facebook account using her name and has apparently been scamming desperate unsuspecting job seekers into paying thousands of rands for jobs.
The fraud case was opened in October at an East London police station, spokesperson Warrant Officer Hazel Mqala confirmed on Monday.
In an interview, Faku said she had been inundated with calls from people demanding their money back after the nephew allegedly promised to organise jobs for them.
The nephew is alleged to have charged job seekers between R1,500 and R6,000 to secure jobs at BCM.
The former BCM mayor said her nephew “was dragging my good name through the mud”.
Faku said she had never had a Facebook account, but that a number of accounts had been allegedly opened by her nephew under her name and profile.
Faku said the fake Facebook account came to her attention late October when she received a call from “a certain comrade” from Scenery Park who had been allegedly duped of R4,500 by the nephew on October 15.
Faku said a few days later she got call from another comrade who lost R6,000 through the job scam.
Faku asked that the alleged victims’ identities be withheld.
Faku said the victims had shown her photos of the person they had dealt with, whom she had identified as her nephew.
The Scenery Park ANC volunteer on Monday said she had fallen into the trap after she “invited Faku” on Facebook in October.
“I work at the metro’s waste disposal unit and as an ANC volunteer, I got that job while comrade Faku was still mayor.
“I told her on Facebook that I was able to put bread on the table because of the opportunity she gave us at the municipality,” she said.
After communicating via inbox about life challenges, the person operating the Faku account said “she” would organise a job for her after speaking with someone from the human resources department at BCM.
An arrangement was made to meet with someone near City Hall.
“When I met up with this guy, he told me that a job for one person will cost R3,000, saying I would have to pay half of that on that day, while the rest was to be paid after receiving my first salary.
“He asked that I bring two more people, our CVs, tax certificates, bank statements and driver’s licences.
“This person told us he worked at the mayor’s office. I had to go borrow R5,000 so we could give him the R4,500.”
Another woman, a public management graduate who was a pupil of Faku when she was still a high school teacher, was also allegedly duped of R6,000.
She said this happened after she had chatted to “Faku” on Facebook about her plans to relocate, her recent divorce, unemployment and how she had lost her children due to her financial instability.
The same modus operandi was used as a meeting was again set up near City Hall.
“When I met him, he asked me to bring three more people, our CVs, tax certificates, PDPs [public driving permits] and money. He said those with PDPs should go to the traffic department where they were to be tested before their interviews.
“He went inside and called saying they were busy putting our names on the database, while later he said they were busy drafting our contracts.
“Later, he asked us to wait in a boardroom. We were chased out by a guard saying no one was allowed to wait there.”
The alleged fraudster could not be reached for comment on Monday, but his mother confirmed that Faku had informed the family of the alleged incidents, saying they had last seen him in June...