Former Absa employees jailed for stealing R1m from dormant accounts

Two former Absa employees will go to jail for creating fraudulent bank accounts to steal funds from foreign passport holders and deceased citizens.

The Gqeberha specialised commercial crimes court sentenced Florika Shenay Owusu, 31, and Abongile Tyusha, 30, to five years for fraud and theft and 10 years for money laundering, Four years of the 10-year sentences were suspended for five years on condition that they do not violate the Prevention of Organised Crime Act in that time.

The two women had colluded to funnel money from dormant bank accounts into new accounts which they fraudulently opened.

Owusu, who was stationed at the Patensie branch, and Tyusha, who was transferred to the Dutywa branch, managed to access Absa’s electronic banking system and open accounts in the names of deceased individuals and foreigners without their knowledge, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson Luxolo Tyali said.

Between November 2019 and June 2021, they issued debit cards for these accounts to facilitate the fraudulent transfers and withdrawals, said Tyali.

“They identified and reactivated 18 dormant accounts, mainly belonging to foreign passport holders but including deceased South African citizens. These reactivated accounts were used to funnel stolen funds into the fraudulent accounts created by Owusu and Tyusha.”

Absa was able to trace all of the transactions as the employees were each entrusted with a user code, and the pair were found to have funnelled more than R1m into the fraudulent accounts from which the money was withdrawn and spent.

Tyali said the stolen money was distributed across various accounts including those in the names of deceased people and one account belonging to a foreigner with an expired passport.

The pair was bust by Absa staff and police investigators and pleaded guilty.

However, state advocate Lise Keech said such a guilty plea did not mean there was remorse and that the bank was the worst place to steal from as this is where people entrusted their money and expected it to be safe.

“The NPA prioritises the prosecution of crime types and criminals that disproportionately undermine South Africa’s safety, the country’s socioeconomic wellbeing and the rule of law,” said Tyali.

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