Stiffer sentence for travel scam couple

A CHATSWORTH couple who duped victims of R1.7million in travel scams were recently handed a further six-year sentence for their crimes.

Megasen Roland Chetty, 40, and Saraswathie Belinda Pillay, 49, posed as travel agents and promised their victims discounted holidays abroad and locally. They would win the trust of the victims and then use them as referrals.

Chetty and Pillay first used a front company called RnB Workwear to conduct their dealings. They later registered another company, Tsar Travels and Affordable Safety Wear.

The couple were arrested in March 2021 after Detective Constable Justin Durugiah, of the KZN Commercial Crime Investigations Unit, linked them to cases in Chatsworth, Phoenix, Malvern, Town Hill, Tongaat, Wentworth, Westville and Durban Central. They were charged with 18 counts of fraud.

They were subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 10 years behind bars, eight of which they were serving when they were charged with a further 10 counts. This stemmed from evidence from two more victims who were defrauded of a total of R527700.

Chetty and Pillay were convicted and sentenced on the latest charges at the Durban Regional Court.

Four of the six-year sentence will run concurrently with their eight years in prison. This means they will effectively serve 10 years in prison.

In one matter in 2019, the couple were found to have made misrepresentations to Buyisiwe Radebe, a daycare owner in Orange Farm in Gauteng using their new company, Tsar Travels. This was for a holiday in Durban. A total of R227700 was paid to them but no holiday materialised.

Radebe told that she had booked flights and accommodation for 160 people during the school holidays in 2020.

“Some of the parents and children from my daycare centre booked to be part of the trip. I would collect the money and make monthly instalments to accounts provided by the accused.

“When it was time for the trip, they told us it was Covid-19. Excuse after excuse would come. So I sent my son to Durban to find the accused’s offices but it was nowhere to be found. Two days later, I flew there personally. I called Belinda and she said she was going to refund me.”

Radebe said Pillay only refunded her R15 000 of the money that was paid.

“I returned to Orange Farm and informed the parents that the situation had changed and they asked for their money back. For some who insisted, I refunded them, for others, I took out a loan to pay for two buses and a hotel for a holiday in April 2021.”

Radebe said she had opened a case with the police but had to pay back all of the money from her own pocket

“I’m paying bit by bit but the interest on the amount owing is making it difficult. It is unbelievable. I trusted Belinda. I sat down with her and spoke to her face-to-face when booking the holiday. I never thought she would do this, especially to the elderly.”

She said she wished the couple had received a stiffer sentence.

In the second matter, Chetty and Pillay approached an Umhlanga businessman during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and asked him to invest in a personal protective equipment (PPE) venture with promises of a return on investment with their company Tsar Travels and Affordable Safety Wear.

According to the police report, the couple secured R300 000 from the businessman but not a single payment was made back to him.

In February 2022, after reading about the couple’s arrest in the media, the businessman reported the matter to police.

He said he was unable to speak about the matter at present.