In a recent judgment handed down by the Pretoria Specialized Commercial Crimes Court, a former Assupol manager has been sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding the company of R1.6 million.
According to The Citizen, Megan Nolan, a former insurance manager, has pleaded guilty to committing fraud exceeding R1.6 million. Megan admitted to manipulating client banking details to divert over R1.6 million into her personal account while working at Assupol Life as a supervisor at that time.
TimesLives reports that Megan worked at the claims administration department, she held her position from 2015 to 2022 and was charged with 39 counts of theft.
Megan resigned in October 2022 and was arrested more than a year later along with her partner, Dianne Carreira. The charges against Dianne were dropped following Megan’s guilty plea.
Megan confessed to intercepting “pending” claims and altering banking details to redirect funds to her partner’s account before approving the claims. Assupol has confirmed that it does not expect to recoup the stolen funds, as Megan likely used them up, but assured that her actions harmed no beneficiaries.
The issue of fraud has unfortunately become increasingly common. According to IOL, two community members visited the Bolobedu offices of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) in Limpopo to apply for disability grants. They were given application forms by a Sassa official to be completed by government-appointed doctors. Although the initial forms were completed, they were not approved because the applicants did not qualify for disability grants.
However, the publication further states that the forms were later resubmitted with amendments that falsely enabled the applicants to qualify for the grants. The Hawks reported that a medical doctor allegedly collaborated with a Sassa official to grant disability benefits to individuals who were not disabled and they were arrested.
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