FORMER FARM MANAGER CONVICTED OF FRAUD
Yesterday the Nelspruit Specialised Commercial Crimes Court convicted a former farm Manager Kenneth Keletso Chiloane on twenty counts of fraud involving over R 4.4 million. In 2012, the accused was employed as a farm manager by Koeltehuis (Pty) Ltd in Hazyview. As the owners diversified its operations, the responsibilities of the accused were also increased to include managing the yellow fleet business that had a contract to supply yellow fleet equipment to a company named Komani (Pty) Ltd.
The accused submitted fraudulent invoices to Komani for payments for yellow fleet equipment, which includes leasing of TLB’s, Tipper trucks and BobCat. Komani paid the invoices into the bank account provided by the accused believing that the services were rendered by Koeltehuis yellow fleet. However the bank account was that of a corporate entity named Sesi Waka Trading CC, owned by the accused and caused an actual loss of over R4.4 million to Koeltehuis. Through police investigation, the accused was arrested and charged together with his corporate entity. In court, the accused pleaded not guilty, and Senior State Advocate Henry Nxumalo led evidence of various witnesses. The court found that the evidence of state witnesses was satisfactory in all material respects and rejected the version of the accused who was accordingly found guilty of 20 counts of fraud.
The case has been postponed to 13 September 2024, for pre-sentence reports and sentencing in the same court.
