A MAN and his family have lost over R200 000 after being scammed by Mama Vivian at a property in Kings Lynne Road, Mulbarton.
The Comaro CHRONICLE spoke to the man who was scammed over a period of a month or two. “We don’t live locally but have family in the area. We were at a local shopping centre and when we came back to our car a pamphlet with Mama Vivian’s details was on my windscreen. We have had a run of bad luck and financial problems so I phoned her.
“She asked me to come to her home and when we got there my wife and I were shown into a Wendy hut in the garden. At first we paid R200 to put our fingertips on a mirror and she said she could make out we had a lot of witchcraft in our home. We left to go home and she told me to fill up a bin bag with soil from our garden and to come back and see her.
“We took the bag of soil back to her and we paid her R2 600 for this consultation. She asked us to go out into the courtyard with her where we were distracted by a ritual for about 15 minutes. When we went back into the Wendy hut she tore open the bin bag and inside with the soil were skulls, shells, money tied up with a rag, and a male animal’s organ. She told us to go then and come back later. When we returned we heard voices and she told us the ‘fathers’ were speaking and we need to give her a further R3 200 so she can purchase a clock made from bark. I went and withdrew the money and came back. She showed us a blue metal box which looked filled with money and she let me feel a wad of R100 notes, in R10 000 bundles. She gave me, my wife and son a R100 note each and we had to go and buy a red, black and white cloth. We did this and came back and she told me to go and buy a bigger metal box to fit R5-million in, which I did and then she said I first had to give her R200 000.
“I recorded the conversation with her,” said the man, “which is now in the hands of the police. I drove to the all night bank on April 15, at OR Tambo to get R200 000 and took it back to her the next day, convinced I’d be going home with the R5-million.”
According to the victim he gave her the money which she and the two ‘fathers’ mixed with their money in the original box. “She said I couldn’t take my money then but had to leave it for five days, so they can add the other R3-million. I locked the blue metal box with a key that came with it and left with the key.
“Five days later I came back and the case was full of money, they said it was R5-million. She then asked for a further R300 000 so it would be 10 per cent of the R5-million I’d be receiving. I told her I wasn’t giving her any more money and that I want my R200 000 back. I was then told I needed a camel skin before she could return my money,” the victim said.
The victim said he couldn’t get a camel skin and the woman told him for R7 000 she could get one but she’d pay for it and he could pay her back later.
“I kept phoning her asking her when I can come and get my money back. Eventually on May 2 she said she needed another R40 000 and I told her I have no more money. Every time I phoned her after that she wouldn’t answer. On May 6 I went to the Mondeor Police Station to open a case.”
On Friday, May 13, Mondeor SAPS and the investigating team, met the man and his wife at the property in Kings Lynne Road and found the woman gone. As they arrived a man ran from the main house, escaping.
The Wendy hut was searched and a trap door was discovered going down into a room with two beds. The hut was full of tribal goods, notes from other people asking for help, spears, animal skins, tribal drums and other items, including hundreds of different pamphlets.
“Now it all makes sense. The voices of the ‘fathers’ we heard must have come from men hidden under the Wendy hut. The tribal huts were covering two holes apart in the floor and they had obviously spoken up into them.”
A case of theft under false pretence has been opened at Mondeor Police Station. According to Constable Elizabeth Mnguni, corporate communication officer for Mondeor SAPS, “Three other cases have been opened relating to the same goings on at this property.”
The investigation will continue.
