How cousin stole relative’s R421k RAF payout in one day

It took only a few hours for a Soweto man to empty his partially blind cousin’s bank account of a R421,000 Road Accident Fund payout. Within a month, the unemployed relative behind the theft allegedly bought a second-hand BMW, threw a party for his child’s birthday and extended his mother’s house, only to later claim he had won the windfall from online sports betting. Now the victim of the theft, Thabo Khoza, 39, who was hit by a car seven years ago while selling food on the streets, can’t afford medical consultation fees with a doctor.

Khoza broke one of his legs during the crash, lost hearing and has constant headaches which need medical attention. His payout recieved in March last year was transferred in three tranches out of this bank account allegedly by his cousin Samukelo using Khoza’s banking app. Khoza said he was hit by a car in Soweto in 2019 while he was crossing a street to sell food items to school kids.

His lawyer deposited R421,000 into his Capitec Bank account on March 25 last year. According to Khoza, the money was transferred from his account via the bank’s application the following day in three tranches of R20,000, R350,000 and R25,000. “I wasn’t even aware that the RAF had paid, and I only noticed these big sums in my account three days after the deposit was made.

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However, it was already late because almost all of it was gone,” recalled Khoza. He said after checking his bank statement closer with the assistance of his brother Welcome Ndou, Khoza realised that his cousin Samukelo had transferred the money into his personal account, and this was also confirmed by Capitec Bank when the theft was reported to them. “I trusted my cousin too much because he would assist me to get around because of my blindness.

Sometimes I’d go to the ATM to withdraw my social grant money with him and I’d call out the PIN code to him at the ATM. He was the one who helped me load the banking app on my phone. “I never thought he’d steal from me, and even when I confronted him he lied and said he had some money from betting,” said Khoza. He also claimed the bank failed to effectively suspend his bank account, posing more risk to his social grant deposits.

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