CALVINIA – A former Home Affairs employee who fraudulently declared living people dead to claim funeral insurance payouts has been sentenced to five years in prison. Four insurance companies suffered a combined loss of R334 634 as a result of the unlawful funeral claims, whilst it caused havoc in her victims’ lives.
Dawn Celeste Pieterson (46), who was convicted by the Calvinia Specialised Commercial Crime Court on 1 October last year, received her sentence in the same court on Monday 26 January.
She was found guilty on all nine counts of fraud, read with the provisions of certain sections of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977, as well as two counts of contravening a section of the Birth and Death Registration Act 51 of 1992.
Lieutenant Colonel Tebogo Thebe, spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), stated that Pieterson’s crimes took place from February 2019 to September 2022 whilst she was employed at the Department of Home Affairs in Calvinia. As part of her duties, she had access to the national population register.
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Manipulated national population register
Pieterson took out funeral cover with reputable insurance companies and nominated herself as a beneficiary. To benefit from the policies, she manipulated the national population register by falsely issuing BI-1663 forms (notice of death forms) to reflect the fictitious deaths of her victims.
The system registered the affected persons as deceased, resulting in a plethora of problems in the victims’ day-to-day lives.
On the fraud charges, Pieterson was sentenced to five years’ direct imprisonment. For contravening the Birth and Death Registration Act, she received 12 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years. She was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.
The provincial head of the Hawks, Major General Steven Mabuela, commended the investigation and prosecution team for their excellent work on the case.
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