A 39-years-old Nadeem Arshad has been proven guilty of 26 counts of fraud and a count of money laundering after stealing more than R11m from FNB. He was sentenced to 18 years in jail in the Durban Specialised Commercial Crimes court.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal, Natasha Kara, said that Nadeem Arshad, 39, had earlier been convicted of 26 counts of fraud and one count of money laundering. He committed the crimes together with two co-conspirators in March 2016.

Kara said the state’s Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) had managed to recover almost half of the money.

Arshad and his two co-conspirators were account holders at First National Bank (FNB). On the day of the offence, Arshad cashed several cheques issued by his co-conspirators,” Kara said.

“They were able to issue the cheques even though their accounts were either empty or closed, thus defrauding the bank. As soon as the money cleared, Arshad moved the money into various other accounts,” she said.

She said that one day along the suspects had defrauded FNB of R11 470 000. 

“Arshad was arrested after FNB found out what had happened. His two conspirators are yet to be caught as one has fled the country while the other absconded during trial,” Kara said.

The state, led by the Senior State Advocate Ashika Lucken and Regional Court Prosecutor Reenai Ramouthar led video footage of Arshad effecting the money transfers at various ATMs as well as the evidence of FNB employees.

Kara said that the AFU, which had been represented in court by State Advocate, Beverly Mothilall, had been granted a Section 18 order for the sum of R4 326 926. The unit managed to successfully recover the money.

“The NPA welcomes this successful prosecution,” Kara said.

She added that Arshad was appealing both his conviction and sentence.