Sandton Police Station Commander shares important steps of prosecution from officials’ perspective
Station Commander of Sandton Police Station Brigadier Egen Moodley describes why most investigations take time, especially cases dealing with white-collar crimes around the Sandton area.
Ever wondered how long it takes for an investigation to reach its conclusion and what is considered to be valid evidence before going to court? It takes a lot of work for police officials to ensure that the process of prosecution is not tainted by the lack of resources and productivity.
Besides organising safety campaigns, conducting vehicle searches and catching criminals, Sandton Police Station officials do have a big role in the process of prosecution. Uncovering vital information and applying for warrants is definitely not an easy task nor a quick one for that matter.
Station Commander Brigadier Egen Moodley briefly broke down the important steps of what police officials prepare before prosecution. To make it simpler in understanding, he used a fraud case study to perfectly paint the picture.
“Criminals, who mainly focus on white-collar crimes such as money laundering, do a lot of research to make sure that they get what they want. They do their best to avoid using weapons and detection. Victims are usually persuaded to pay deposits on properties or vehicles which they physically did not see. Once the money has been sent to the perpetrators, it’s gone.
“People think that if you put money into a bank account you can simply track down the account. Unfortunately what we see here is that criminals use false information through stolen IDs and addresses that don’t exist. They send money to different accounts to throw us off course, but we often catch them. We don’t have access to banking and cellphone information, we follow a court process. So an application to a magistrate via prosecutors to get the information does require a lot of time as banks get a lot of requests from different entities on a daily basis.” .
Moodley urged individuals to be extremely cautious when dealing with online deals. He added that the longest case to date involves fraud which occurred three years ago and is still being investigated.
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https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/316321/new-season-same-challenges-smart-solutions/
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/316575/fight-crime-together-sandton-cpf/
