A 44-year-old Mpumalanga lawyer, Jo-Anne Mantladi Mmela, was sent to jail for 10 years after the Middelburg serious commercial crimes court found she had taken R3.3m in Road Accident Fund (RAF) cash, which includes R1.4m for a child hurt in a crash.
The court gave the ruling after a long probe that started when police held Mmela on September 20 2022. She went to the Middelburg magistrate’s court the next day and got R25,000 bail. The RAF cash had been paid into her trust account after she sent in a claim for the child’s guardian.
Mpumalanga Hawks spokesperson WO Thandi Tshabalala said Mmela sent the R1.4m to a different person and then said she had paid the guardian. Tshabalala said: “Instead of transferring the funds to the child’s guardian, Mmela redirected the money to another individual’s account and falsely claimed to have paid the guardian.”
After she got bail, her case was moved to December 5 2022 for more work. But she did not come back to court and went on the run, which led police to call on the public for help. A media note went out on February 21 2024 asking people to help find her.
People then gave tips that helped police track her down near Pretoria. After that, she was held in jail and not given bail. Police kept going with the probe and linked her to more people who had lost big sums in the same way.
While she was in jail, more people said they had lost R1.2m, R200,000 and R550,000 to her. These new cases were added to the first case about the child’s cash, which made the full case stronger as police found a clear pattern in how the cash went missing.
The Hawks said this was one of their more hard money cases, with deep checks into bank moves and trust account flows. Each case showed the same thing: RAF cash went in and was then sent out in the wrong way.
Police said the case showed how key long, firm work is, with help from the public and the National Prosecuting Authority. Tshabalala said each claim tied to Mmela was checked and added to the case before the court gave its ruling.
The Hawks chief in Mpumalanga said he was glad with the result, and he praised the team that worked on the case and the state lawyers who got what he called a fair and right end to the matter.
The 10-year jail term closed a long legal fight and made sure Mmela could no longer use her role as a lawyer to take cash. The court’s ruling was the last step in making her answer for the R3.3m in RAF funds and the harm done to many people.
