GAUTENG police believe they have finally cracked a petrol-card syndicate that has swindled the province's department of transport more than a million rand over two years.
Police pounced on a man carrying several petrol cards at a filling station in Zebediela in Limpopo on Thursday.
The man allegedly confessed to police that he was working together with transport department employees who gave him the cards to make money.
"He then recruited petrol attendants to work with him. If you come to the station to pour petrol, the attendant would take your money and instead of handing over to the cashier, he would swipe the card and write fake car registration numbers," said a police source close to the investigation.
"The attendant would then hand over cash to this guy."
The source said in one instance they used the card to pour petrol into a BMW but on the register it was entered as a Golf.
The source said he believed the man used the petrol station in Zebediela because it was far from where they stole the cards. "We established that he is a boyfriend of one of the employees in the fleet management unit within the department," said the source.
"Our investigation found that the signatures on the cards matched the signature of his girlfriend."
Police then pounced on the department employee on Friday. The source said the man told police that they made about R2000 a day from the petrol cards.
A traffic management employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department had lost about R1,2 million through the petrol card scam.
"We received information from fleet management that petrol cards were missing. We then instituted an investigation," he said.
Sowetan is in possession of all the names of the people involved in the alleged scam. "We have discovered that there are huge weak internal controls. People do as they want," he said.
He said several cars had also gone missing from the same department. He said most of them had not been reported missing.
He said the investigation into missing cars was also continuing.
Cops bust petrol card syndicate
GAUTENG police believe they have finally cracked a petrol-card syndicate that has swindled the province's department of transport more than a million rand over two years.
Police pounced on a man carrying several petrol cards at a filling station in Zebediela in Limpopo on Thursday.
The man allegedly confessed to police that he was working together with transport department employees who gave him the cards to make money.
"He then recruited petrol attendants to work with him. If you come to the station to pour petrol, the attendant would take your money and instead of handing over to the cashier, he would swipe the card and write fake car registration numbers," said a police source close to the investigation.
"The attendant would then hand over cash to this guy."
The source said in one instance they used the card to pour petrol into a BMW but on the register it was entered as a Golf.
The source said he believed the man used the petrol station in Zebediela because it was far from where they stole the cards. "We established that he is a boyfriend of one of the employees in the fleet management unit within the department," said the source.
"Our investigation found that the signatures on the cards matched the signature of his girlfriend."
Police then pounced on the department employee on Friday. The source said the man told police that they made about R2000 a day from the petrol cards.
A traffic management employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department had lost about R1,2 million through the petrol card scam.
"We received information from fleet management that petrol cards were missing. We then instituted an investigation," he said.
Sowetan is in possession of all the names of the people involved in the alleged scam. "We have discovered that there are huge weak internal controls. People do as they want," he said.
He said several cars had also gone missing from the same department. He said most of them had not been reported missing.
He said the investigation into missing cars was also continuing.
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