2 COMPANIES IN EPTC FRAUD NOT REGISTERED

MBABANE – The plot thickens! As investigations into the fraud committed a week ago at Eswatini Post and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) intensify, two of the five companies discovered to be recipients of the money are not listed with the registrar of companies.

This publication last Friday reported that there were five companies and nine individuals who had their bank accounts frozen following the trickery at EPTC.
The names of the individuals and the companies are known to this publication but will not be revealed as investigations are still ongoing and no arrests have been made.

The fraud, which allegedly happened between last Friday night, Saturday evening and Monday morning, saw the telecommunications company’s account defrauded over E20 million.
However, for now, EPTC and the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) confirmed that E16 million was discovered missing and from that amount, E15 million had already been recovered.

According to impeccable sources, it is anticipated that the amount siphoned from EPTC through cyber fraud may increase as investigations are ongoing.

Investigations

Meanwhile, independent investigations by this publication revealed that from the five companies whose bank accounts were frozen, two were not in the country’s register of companies operating in the kingdom.
From the three companies that are implicated in the cyber fraud – by virtue of being recipients of the money that was moved from EPTC, two of them have one director while the other has two directors sharing the same surname.

The companies were registered in various years as one of them was approved to operate in the country in 2007, another in 2016 and the third one was entered into the government system in 2018.

To this, Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, said: “The police are investigating and gathering any information necessary. We cannot delve much on the issue for now.”

Vilakati further said there were no arrests that had been made yet. Worth noting is that the police have sought assistance in unravelling the mystery of the cyber fraud from some of the senior personnel at EPTC. On the other hand, when the Managing Director of EPTC, Petros Dlamini, was sought for comment, his phone rang unanswered.

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