Defrauding of RAF beneficiaries on the rise

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The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has reported a large number of beneficiaries being defrauded.

In a recent case, 33-year-old Neo Moreki from the Vaal was swindled of R2 million in a settlement in 2019 after being involved in a car crash.

RAF spokesperson McIntosh Polela says there have been almost a thousand reported cases of fraud during the 2023/24 financial year, with 417 cases referred to the police.

“We’ve had 417 cases referred to the SAPS. So, the case you’re talking about unfortunately is very prevalent. We’ve got lawyers colluding with claimants themselves sometimes to defraud the RAF then we have lawyers defrauding claimants.”

“In this case, [it] is a case of the lawyer defrauding the claimants because you must understand that once we’ve put the money in a trust account it’s now the lawyer that is in charge of that money and nobody else would’ve transferred that money into a decoy account but the lawyers themselves,” explains Polela.

RAF beneficiary falls victim to fraud