Richmond Detectives are looking for the person in the attached identikit. Police believe that he may be of assistance in a case of theft by false pretence that occurred in Richmond. The person in the attached identikit is an Indian man believed to be in his thirties. He is approximately 1.6 metres tall in height. He is dark in complexion. He speaks English fluently. It is alleged that on 20 February 2015, an 80-year-old victim received a telephone call from a man allegedly working for a certain company. He promised to send someone to the victim’s house to help her with load shedding and lowering the Eskom bill. On 23 February 2015 the victim and her husband were approached by the man who identified himself as Andrew from Universal Solutions and told them that his company helps pensioners to evade load shedding.
He then asked for their identity documents and went to the electricity metre box and came back claiming that he discovered that their Eskom account is too expensive but he can arrange for them to pay less. He then requested for their bank cards and the total amount of sixteen thousand rand R16,000-00 was deducted from the wife’s bank account and eight thousand rand R8,000-00 from the husband’s account was also deducted using his hand swiping machine. He then told them that their electricity bill will drop and he then fled on his white vehicle. A short while later the complainant phoned her daughter informing her about what happened in her house. The daughter realised that it was a form of a scam and then advised their parents to report the matter to the police. A case of theft by false pretense was opened at Richmond SAPS.
In another separate incident on 16 May 2015, it is alleged that a 77-year-old female victim was also approached by a man who identified himself as Ricardo Abrahams. He applied the similar approach as the first incident and stole the victim’s money to the value of sixteen thousand rand R16,000-00 from her bank account. The identikit has not yet been done on this incident but the police are suspecting that the same person is still operating in the area. Police are sending a stem warning to the community of Richmond and surroundings especially the elderly people to be vigilant of the phone calls from strangers who want to assist them with water and electricity bills.
Police are making an appeal to anyone that can assist with any information regarding the whereabouts of the person in the identikit to urgently contact the investigating officer, Detective Sergeant Nhlanhla Mtshali on 033 212 9492/ 082 459 6266 or Crime Stop on 08600 10111.
