A home affairs official got into her employer's system, stole people's ID numbers, opened funeral policies, nominated herself as the beneficiary then declared the owners of those IDs dead, the Hawks have revealed.
She then collected insurance monies while her victims were left to struggle, unable to access their social grants, banks and other services as they had been declared dead and their IDs blocked.
According to Lt-Col Tebogo Thebe, spokesperson for the Hawks in the Northern Cape, Dawn Celeste Pieterson was on Wednesday found guilty of fraud at the Calvinia magistrate's court for the crimes that she committed as far back as 2019.
“Pieterson, 45, was found guilty on all nine counts of fraud, read with the provisions of section 99, 103, and 224 of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977 as well as two counts of contravention Section 31 (1) (d) of Birth and Death Registration Act 51 of 1992,” said Thebe.
Pieterson, 45, was found guilty on all nine counts of fraud, read with the provisions of section 99, 103, and 224 of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977 as well as two counts of contravention Section 31 (1) (d) of Birth and Death Registration Act 51 of 1992
Thebe said Pieterson's crimes took place between February 2019 and September 2022 when she was still an employee of the department of home affairs in Calvinia where she had access to the national population register.
“Pieterson took funeral covers from reputable insurance companies and nominated herself as a beneficiary. To benefit, she manipulated the national population register by falsely issuing BI-1663 forms (notice of death forms) to reflect the fictitious death of the victims.
“The system registered the affected persons as deceased, resulting in a plethora of problems in the victims’ day to day lives,” he said.
The matter was postponed to January 26 2026 for sentencing.
Brig Prince Mashimbye, acting provincial head of the Hawks, commended the great effort of the investigation and prosecution team.
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