Father and son arrested for R99 debit order syndicate

A father and son alleged to be part of a Durban debit order syndicate were released on R30,000 bail each after being charged with fraud.

The pair were directors at Sub User, a Durban call centre that fraudulently created R99 debit orders on several clients of different banks in South Africa.

Sub User swindled bank customers of R18 million between November 2018 and February 2019.

Ravenda Sigh, 50, and his son Andrew, 26, handed themselves to the Hawks serious commercial crime in Johannesburg.

“The accused allegedly created a fraudulent bank payment system to collect debit orders for call centres which resulted in unauthorised debit orders,” read the statement.

A forensic investigation by the banks linked their call centre to the unauthorised debit orders.

“Their case was postponed to 27 May 2022, where they will be joining their co-accused, Jason Foster and Richard Marsden, who were previously arrested and later released on R30,000 and R100,000 bail,” the statement read.

Foster, 39, was arrested in February at OR Tambo International Airport and Richard, 51, at Cape Town International Airport.

The pair were directors at Blue Debit and Talent Base call centres, also based in Durban.

Investigations done by the Hawks revealed that about R240 million linked to the syndicate was transferred into different accounts.

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