LEBOGANG SEALE
TWO female bank employees allegedly stashed banknotes amounting to R1.1 million quietly into a bag and handed it to a “client”. The man took the cash from the bank and loaded it into a Nissan Navara parked metres away from the Absa bank’s Jabulani branch in Soweto.
This was on June 30 last year and the soccer World Cup was in full swing.
This is how a police source close to the investigation described how the R1.1m in the middle of last year went down.
After the disappearance of the money, the women – one of whom kept the keys to the safe – stopped going to work.
Within a week of the theft, detectives received a tip-off and pounced on Sydney Ngalo, the alleged kingpin who is also accused of having helped transport the loot from the bank to a house in the township.
Four months later, the police swooped on the two women, Kate Kekana and Portia Dioka, at their hideouts in Mokopane, Limpopo. Police also arrested Dioka’s husband, Leonard Moriti.
The four were due to make another appearance today in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on charges of fraud.
All the suspects, except Ngalo, are being detained at the Johannesburg Prison.
Ngalo, who owns a tavern in Zola, was released after four months in custody on R5 000 bail by the Johannesburg High Court.