Johannesburg:
A 53-year-old Indian-origin South African disbarred attorney who scammed 17 couples across the country by taking money from them for the same venue on the same day has been arrested after she was tracked down by a private security company.
But promises by her attorney and family to repay all the scam victims have led to her possibly escaping serving jail time for fraud.
Although the scammer, arrested on Tuesday, was not initially named because she had not appeared in court yet, security company Reaction Unit South Africa (RUSA) said on its Facebook page that the woman is Prelyn Mohanlall, whose attorney Chris Gounden contacted them with the offer to make arrangements to pay back all victims that were scammed and are in possession of proof of payments.
Mohanlall allegedly convinced lovestruck couples planning their weddings to pay large sums in advance for a venue without having any link to the place.
When the couples arrived at the venue, they would find it deserted, with no water or electricity, ruining their special wedding days.
One of the couples, who preferred to remain anonymous, contracted RUSA in December last year to track down Mohanlall. The company subsequently found through social media a total of 17 couples who had been scammed in this way.
“Complainants were from several provinces in South Africa. A detective from SAPS Boksburg North (in Gauteng province) then contacted RUSA and informed them that the same suspect was wanted for two cases of fraud opened in Gauteng in 2024. The woman had defrauded a car dealership of R200 000 and a couple for R26 000,” said Head of RUSA, Prem Balram. RUSA said after they tracked the woman down, Mohanlall informed officers that she was a criminal attorney that had been barred by the Law Society after she stole funds from a client’s Trust Fund account.
“It was later established that the suspect was convicted for fraud and has a criminal record and a history of scams spanning over 20 years,” Balram said.
The weekly Post reported that the woman has denied that she was running a scam and said her business had “hit a rough patch” and she was struggling to pay back those who cancelled their weddings.
She claimed she owed nine couples a total of about R60 000 and was planning on paying back every cent.
“It’s not a scam and I am not a scammer. My company went through so much. Late last year, I had nine cancellations and I sent out letters to each of the couples to notify them that they would get a full refund. But I could not repay them timeously because my partners pulled out in October,” she told the weekly.
A man who was scammed shared how he and his fiancée had to suffer the embarrassment of cancelling their wedding and starting to save from scratch to plan it again for several months later this year.
“Based on what she ‘stole’ from us, it drastically impacted our planning and what we hoped to be our dream day has now become an event where we have to settle for what we can afford,” the man, who did not want to be identified, said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
