'Millions swindled from luxury estate'

The accountant for Silver Lakes Estate, in Pretoria, has been fired for alleged fraud thought to involve more than R7 million.

"Our internal audit process showed that fraud amounting to R2.8m was perpetrated over the past financial year, which began in April 2012," the newspaper quoted homeowners' association board chairman Dr Steven Pretorius as writing in the estate's e-newsletter.

"We have all the reason in the world to believe that the final amount, which includes all the previous years, totals more than R7m, as she began working for the homeowners' association as an accountant in 1997."

A charge of fraud had reportedly been laid with the police's commercial crime unit.

According to Beeld, Pretorius said that although the woman provided evidence of payments to service providers, she allegedly replaced beneficiaries' bank details with her own.

He reportedly said an external forensic investigation would determine why no one had realised money was disappearing. The estate had received a clean audit in the past four years.