A Cape Town man has been sentenced in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on charges of forgery, fraud, and contravention of the National Credit Act.
Zayid Dawood Karrim, 44, was convicted for submitting fraudulent documents for vehicle finance at Toyota in Ottery.
Western Cape spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (better known as the Hawks) Zinzi Hani said the fraudulent documentation was submitted in October 2010.
Hani said that Karrim applied for vehicle finance at Ottery Toyota in October 2010 through Westbank, where Karrim inflated bank statements and submitted false payslips during the application of a vehicle worth R665,635.
“He failed to pay his monthly instalments and to inform the bank of the vehicle’s whereabouts after he had sub-rented the vehicle,” Hani said.
“The person to whom he rented out the vehicle tried to cross the Beitbridge into Zimbabwe in 2012 and that is where the fraud was discovered,” she said.
Karrim was arrested in 2015, and during court proceedings, he absconded.
“He was traced and rearrested by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team on a warrant of arrest which later led to him handing himself over to the team on August 22, 2022, for contempt of court relating to two of his previous court attendances pertaining to vehicle finance fraud in 2022,” Hani said.
Karrim was previously released on R5,000 bail for both cases.
He was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for forgery, 12 months imprisonment for contravention of the National Credit Act, and six years imprisonment for fraud, of which four years were suspended.
Karrim will effectively serve two years direct imprisonment.