A couple who stole a government clerk’s life savings with promises to turn her into a multimillionaire will serve eight years behind bars.

The East London regional court sentenced Abul Shakul, 39, and Sarah Kazibe, 37, on Friday after their conviction on fraud charges.

Shakul and Kazibe duped the clerk from Mdantsane into resigning from her job in 2017 and giving them her R378,000 pension savings. Instead of transforming the money into millions of rand, as promised, they vanished.  

It took the victim two years to report the case to the Hawks’ serious commercial crime investigation team. The couple were  arrested in Bloemfontein in May 2017.

“It is reported that an admin clerk from the department of education in Mdantsane, a client of the couple, was lured to resign from work of which she ultimately succumbed. She was told that whatever she gave to the healers would be somehow inflated to R10m,” said Hawks spokesperson Capt Yolisa Mgolodela.

Shakul and Kazibe have been in custody since their arrest. “This sentence adds to a more than four-year term spent by the couple behind bars since their arrest on May 10 2017,” she said.

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