Edward, Leandre and Yannick are charged with over 40 counts including rape, kidnapping, human trafficking, assault, debt bondage, withholding personal identity documentation, using the services of a trafficking victim and dealing in drugs from 2015 to 2017. Pic: supplied
Cape Town - A section 204 witness, on the stand for more than two weeks, on Monday came clean about her involvement in the fraud and internet scams operating from the Ayuk residence on Piet Grobbelaar Street in Table View since 2015.
Edward, Leandre and Yannick are charged with more than 40 counts including rape, kidnapping, human trafficking, assault, debt bondage, withholding personal identity documentation, using the services of a trafficking victim, and dealing in drugs from 2015 to 2017.
On Monday, the 28-year-old witness, who cannot be named, corroborated the version of the Ayuks and the State.
She agreed with advocate Mohamed Sibda when he said Edward wanted to return her to her mother in Springbok.
Edward Ayuk claimed he did not know the woman, however in 2015 she was at his premises and did business with three other people named Alaji, Obama and Rebecca.
Sibda said: “What they were busy with was something like internet dating, do you know about that? They would speak to people on the phone, and you would help them with the Afrikaans-speaking people?” She agreed.
He said the scam involved Rebecca pretending to be the nanny and the witness pretending to be a child. She giggled and agreed. She said Edward withheld her ID but when Sibda challenged her to say, “He kept it under a tablecloth”, she said, “No, I don’t know about where he kept it.”
She agreed when Sibda told her that her ID was used for transferring funds, and at her initial meeting with Ayuk she said it was okay but warned Edward to “be careful” about using her personal information for sending and receiving cash at supermarkets such as Checkers and Shoprite.
The witness said the last time she saw Edward was after he offered to return her back to her mother.
She testified, she refused to return, approached a client who took her to Dunoon where he gave her money for a ticket but instead of Springbok she ended up in Johannesburg.
She stayed there for two months before she returned but hadn't seen the alleged human trafficker until they saw one another in court. She said all Edward would do at the house is “sleep”, “cook in the kitchen” and leave to “play soccer bets”.
rafieka.williams@inl.co.za
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