A rich woman and bad boys.

Today was one big run around, following up on my two most recent stories.
First of all, I got to cover the bail application of the really rich woman who was arrested along with her hubbie and his dad for fraud, theft and money laundering. And at the same time they had their property, cars, bank accounts, companies and trusts altogether worth about R10-million seized. That's got to be annoying if you've been living it up and driving around in a Bentley Turbo and stuff!
So there they stood in the dock this morning, hardly looking like millionaires in their jeans and tracksuit tops after a night in the slammer. It turns out the woman - a one-time legal secretary turned lady of leisure - had allegedly been conning her boss into signing bunches of payments to various people which she would simply divert the amounts into her own account, her husband's, her father-in-law's bond account or whatever.
It took a while - apparently several months and about R1.4-million down the tube - before boss cottoned on, got himself an investigator and the whole family got busted. A quick look at everybody's healthy bank balances and sorry salary slips resulted in the long arm of the law snatching all their stuff and freezing it.
They got bail okay, but they now have a lot of please explaining to do to the cops. And then to the tax man!
No sooner was I back at the office than my phone rang. It was the mother of Donovan - he of the tattoo, gold tooth and bullet hole through the stomach story I did on Tuesday. She was still deeply distressed and now wanted to sue the state for Donovan's medical costs. She said her other son and Don's two friends who had all been arrested for attempted murder following the one-way street debacle had all been released before the case made it to court. She now wanted to sue for wrongful arrest. I felt sorry for her.
Then I received another call from a contact of mine who saw the story and recognised the names involved. The guys, he said, were serial housebreakers known in the area. The mother was kind of a Ma Baker character, living off the proceeds of her son's crimes.
I called the police for comment and they told the same story. The attempted murder charges had been dropped, but detectives were busy with investigations. The boys had apparently ripped off a big screen TV on their way home from court!
The story lives on...