Heartless swindlers are preying on poor, uneducated families by pretending to be police officers who are prepared to take a bribe to release relatives being held in police custody.
Even farmers have been duped into paying for “transporation of recovered stock”.
The office of Eastern Cape provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Liziwe Ntshinga said five cases of extortion had been opened this year in different parts of the province by victims.
The smooth actors, whose rank of choice is that of a detective, tell victims that the payment would also result in the docket vanishing.
The shysters seem to have a good grasp of police culture, proceedings and can up their game to emulate the tone of command used by officers, and even use the names of real senior cops.
They are so good at pretending to be police brass that they are able to dupe constables and other lower ranking cops at stations into supplying them with case dockets, a senior police source said.
The dockets are then mined for information and used to extort payments from family and friends of people held in police custody.
The syndicate is operating in the Eastern Cape and is succeeding in squeezing large sums of money from desperate people, said senior Eastern Cape cops.
After the money has been transferred into the fake cops' accounts, the crooks vanish.
The source revealed that there had been instances where the bogus cops’ scam was thwarted by vigilant officers who asked for verification of the so-called top officer.
Ntshinga’s spokesperson Brigadier Thembinkosi Kinana said the scam was picked up in late 2018.
Asked whether they were investigating a possibility that the scammers were rogue former or current police officers, Kinana said: “We will only know once the investigation has uncovered the faces behind this plot.”
Kinana said: “The (SAPS) took notice of this pattern in the recent weeks after receiving concerns from various individuals within the communities and police themselves.
“These faceless criminals are phoning relatives of the arrested suspects whom they know are desperately seeking help to have their loved ones or friends released from police custody..”
He slammed the gangsters as “heartless” and “unscrupulous”.
“They pretend that they are bringing solutions to cases that are being investigated by the police. They use false names and ranks to introduce themselves as senior police officers who are bringing information in exchange for money.”
Kinana said the gang even used actual police members’ names to authenticate their calls and create false expectations by saying that they had the authority to get the suspects released by the police, if money was paid over.
Kinana said it was important for the public to be aware that under no circumstances should a policeman ask for money from the public.
Asked if the victims who paid the bribes would be arrested for taking part in a corrupt activity, Kinana said the victims were mostly ignorant of their role in the scam.
“The victims were not aware they were paying bribes. The criminals mostly target uneducated people and give an impression that the bribes were legal fees and that the process was lawful.
“Only the courts of law are authorised to release the arrested persons under regulated and stipulated conditions,” said Kinana.
The source said it was not only relatives of people arrested who had been stung.
Two farmers from Cradock and Makhanda paid fake cops a combined R10,000 for the transport of "recovered" stock which was in fact still missing.
“The scammers start by calling our officials at charge offices pretending to be high-ranking officials from the national police. They ask for all the cases they are working on including contact numbers of next-of-kin of people arrested or who have opened cases. They mainly target those detained at our police cells waiting to appear in court.”
The source described the scammers as good actors. “They pretend to be high-ranking police officials from head office seeking cases especially those arrested over the weekend. They get the information and proceed to call their family members, and promise to release them early at a sum of R3,000 or more.”
People contacted by the crooks are asked to immediately inform the police at 08600-10111. The identities of those calling will be be kept strictly confidential...