The South African powerlifting champion, whose opportunity to attend the World Championships was hampered by alleged fraud, proved that she would do everything in her power to ensure that her dreams were not completely shattered.
PE Express previously reported about 18-year-old Nicole Loubser, from Nelson Mandela Bay, who had lost almost all the money raised for her trip to Turkey due to alleged fraud.
After opening an account at a bank in Corkwood Square in Kariega in April this year, Nicole was suddenly left with only R1 836.69, when there was originally R52 000 in her bank account.
Since she was chosen to represent South Africa at the Powerlifting World Championship in Turkey this month and the African Championships in Morocco two weeks after that, as well as the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand in December, money was raised for her travelling expenses, accommodation, visas, equipment and Protea clothing.
She had, however, discovered that money had been taken from this account without her permission or knowledge, which came as a great shock to her.
According to Nicole, she immediately went to the branch, where an employee tried for more than two hours to get hold of the bank’s fraud department without any success.
She has received three SMSs, one stating that an investigation had been launched and the others to say that the investigation is still ongoing.
Police spokesperson, Col. Priscilla Naidu, had also confirmed that police are investigating a case of fraud.
Although all hope seemed lost since it was too late for her to arrange more fund-raising events, Nicole eventually left the country a few days ago after a family member was kind enough to sponsor the trip to Istanbul.
“[The next day] there were two detectives at school and the teacher and I went down to [the bank] with the detectives and they asked the bank into which accounts the money had been paid in,” Nicole explained.
“All the information they could give us at the time was that it had been paid into two accounts of a specific bank and one account into another, different bank.
“They are going to look into the account holders of those accounts and will get back to me,” she said.
“So far, I haven’t had any money paid back to me but at least they are still working on the case,” she added.
“Despite the whole situation with the money, I am very excited at the prospect of still being able to go to Turkey to compete,” Nicole said.
