News24 report that an Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) insider is among seven family members arrested last week for allegedly ripping off the UIF fund.

Hawks spokesperson Zinzi Hani said a UIF staffer discovered that three claimants did not work for Kasam Services, a pool cleaning company registered with the department as a UIF contributor. She questioned a batch of payments. The trail then led to the wife of one of the claimants, who works at the UIF in Cape Town. Three of the claimants had already received part of the UIF benefits to the value of just more than R108,000, while four other claims were placed on hold when it came to the attention of the Department of Labour that the claims were fraudulent. The implicated UIF employee is employed as a client service officer, and is alleged to have ensured that the claims were processed. The suspects face 18 charges of fraud, forgery, uttering and one charge of corruption for allegedly defrauding the fund. They appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court last Thursday and were each granted R2,500 bail. They have to return to court on 15 May.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard compiled by Jenni Evans at News24

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