Jaco Scheepers has been sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by the Port Elizabeth Specialised Commercial Crimes Court for fraud.
- An Eastern Cape financial administrator has been sentenced after pleading guilty to fraud amounting to R2 million.
- Jaco Scheepers stole the money over a two-year period.
- He has been sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.
An employee of a Shopfit store who stole R2 million from the franchise over a two-year period was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by the Port Elizabeth Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday.
The hefty sentence against Jaco Scheepers, 43, came a day after the court found the former financial administrator guilty of fraud amounting to R2.038 million.
The money was transferred into a bank account of a bogus supplier created by Scheepers between March 2017 and April 2019, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced in a statement.
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Handing down the sentence, magistrate Johannes Classen said the offence was serious and had a devastating financial impact on the company and its employees.
NPA spokesperson Anelisa Ngcakani said Scheepers was employed as a financial administrator at Stevo Imports and Distribution Agencies from 2017 to 2019.
Ngcakani added the Port Elizabeth-based company traded as Shopfit and Scheepers’ duties included administrating payments to suppliers of Shopfit.
The company held an account at Nedbank to which Scheepers had authorised access to as he performed payments to suppliers via electronic fund transfers (EFTs), she said.
“During March 2017 to April 2019, Scheepers created a fictitious supplier on Shopfit’s ledger named M&M Industries. He then effected various payments via EFT to M&M Industries which collectively amounted to just over R2.038 million.
“Furthermore, he opened an account at Absa which he attached to the M&M Industries and which he uploaded on the company system for payment. He was the sole signatory to this Absa account. Consequently, Shopfit suffered a total loss of R2 038 584.93”.
Scheepers was arrested by the Serious Commercial Crimes branch of the Hawks in January 2020.
On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty in the same court for fraud, said Ngcakani.
Senior prosecutor advocate Leigh-Anne Pillay-Selahle said the crime was a planned and deliberate offence, according to Ngcakani.
Ngcakani said Scheepers had created a fictitious company and opened a separate bank account to the one he received his salary from, which resulted in the fraud remaining undetected for a long period.
“This was money stolen for his benefit. He had no other choice but to plead guilty. The retrenchments at Shopfit which took place in May 2019 would have been less had he not committed this fraud,” said Pillay-Selahle.
