Abducted woman's messages after her rape lead to arrest

Frantic messages from a woman to her friend crying for help and saying she had just been raped led to the arrest of a man who had allegedly been using fake Facebook profiles to lure Gauteng women to Limpopo to rape them.

On Sunday, the 28-year-old Joburg woman told her male friend that she was off to Pretoria to meet her boyfriend, whom she met on Facebook and had been chatting to for a few months. 

However, on Monday the friend got a voicenote from the woman: “I was raped twice”, the woman cried in the message. 

Later, while the alleged rapist was busy driving and chatting to his friend, the woman managed to send her friend more messages, telling him that the man who raped her was not the one she had been chatting on Facebook with and that he had taken her to Limpopo, an area she was not familiar with.

She managed to discreetly take a picture of the alleged rapist and sent it to her friend. She also sent him her location, the model and colour of the car, and its Gauteng registration number.

Panicked and not knowing what to do to help, the friend said he went onto the internet, looking for the contact details of the police and came upon those of national police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe.

“I then sent the voicenote and screenshots to Mathe and tried to call. After some time, Mathe called back and asked me for the contact [details] of my friend, and that they would track her,” he told Sowetan.

Police acted swiftly, according to Mathe.

“Limpopo police commissioner, Lt-Gen Thembi Hadebe, immediately mobilised a team to search for the victim,” Mathe said.

“Within five hours, the victim and her kidnapper were traced to a filling station in Giyani, Limpopo, where the con man had run out of petrol and money to fill up his vehicle.

“The 24-year-old Facebook impostor appeared before the Bolobedu magistrate’s court (on Wednesday) and was formally charged with kidnapping and rape,” Mathe said.

She asked the media not to name the suspect or share his photograph “as investigators are linking him to other cases that were reported with the same modus operandi. Other victims are also coming forward, and an identity parade is imminent.”

Mathe said police have seized the suspect’s electronic devices to determine how many women may have fallen victim to him.

The accused is alleged to have used the same modus operandi as convicted murderer Thabo Bester, who used Facebook to lure young unsuspecting girls by either promising them jobs or dating them under false names.

It has emerged that the 24-year-old suspect is believed to have posed on Facebook as a well-known Limpopo artist looking for young women to be in his music video, only to kidnap and rape them after they met.

When he met the victims in person, he allegedly told them that he was the artist's brother, who had asked him to pick them up.

The artist, who asked not to be named to protect his brand as he has international gigs lined up in the coming months, said he only became aware of the rapes when the victims contacted him and his manager on the number on his Instagram page.

“They were saying my brother had raped either them or their daughters,” he said.

“I was told that he invites girls from Pretoria to Limpopo, promising them a music video shoot. When the girls arrive, he pretends to be my little brother then threatens them until he rapes them with his friends.

“When the whole thing of rapes started, I was away on gigs and when I came back I helped about five girls to open cases. I also opened a case of defamation of character,” he said.

Mathe said police believe the man could be linked to the Limpopo rapes.

“The suspect has been identified as the person of interest in the cases that were reported last year in June by a Limpopo artist whose name was used to target women.

“The cases include kidnap and rape; investigations are ongoing,” she said.

Social media law expert Emma Sadleir said the increase in cyber-related crimes means there was a need to teach social media users to be vigilant and sceptical of seemingly attractive offers.

“We are seeing an increase in cybercrime, some of which turn into serious real harm, and when it comes to job offers, it is heartbreaking because people are desperate and willing to risk their safety for a pay cheque, which is understandable in the current economic climate,” she said 

Cybersecurity expert Anna Collard said that young people tend to fall for these types of scams because they are desperate for jobs and vulnerable.

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