Former law firm secretary gets seven years for R13m fraud

The Bellville specialised commercial crimes court has sentenced Alwena Smith to an effective seven-year direct imprisonment aftershe defrauded a Stellenbosch law firmof more than R13m. Smith, 53, was a senior accounts secretary of a law firm that specialised in notaries, conveyancing, estate law and third-party claims. She was employed from March 2006 until she was dismissed in May 2018,National Prosecuting Authorityspokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said on Friday.

The court convicted Smith, after she entered into a plea and sentencing agreement with the state, of 171 counts of fraud, 171 counts of interference with data and four counts of money laundering. The court ordered the sentences to run concurrently. She used her internet profile and her colleague’s internet profile to create fictitious profiles on the trust account profiles and made 171 transfers into her private bank account In her plea and sentencing agreement, Smith said she managed day-to-day income and expenditure of receipting monies, as well as regular banking duties.

She had access to electronic computer systems and files. Clients would pay monies or retainers into the law firm’s trust account. Whenever work was done on a client’s file, payment would be deducted from the client’s account or retainer held in the law firm’s trust bank account.

[paywall]

She had to make electronic payments as part of her duties, and she was assigned an internet profile on the law firm’s trust bank account. She also had to pay the debtors and creditors of the law firm. “She used her internet profile and her colleague’s internet profile to create fictitious profiles on the trust account profiles and made 171 transfers into her private bank account.

An investigation revealed that 171 illegal cheques were withdrawn from different client files she had access to,” Ntabazalila said. On the 171 charges of interfering with data, the accused created false beneficiaries to conceal payments to her private bank accounts. She deliberately made spelling mistakes in creating false beneficiaries of existing clients so that the law firm’s banking system did not show that the beneficiaries already existed.

Smith paid some of the stolen money into her company’s bank accounts. Some of the money was paid into the bank accounts of her husband and daughter, to whom she lied that she had received an inheritance. The husband and daughter were cleared after she confessed that they were not aware of her fraudulent actions.

[/paywall]