Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.
TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust.
In brief: A South African man who pulled off one of the biggest qualification-fraud cases in recent memory has finally been sentenced to 15 years behind bars. Daniel Mthimkhulu's con job allowed him to climb the ranks at the state-owned Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), eventually becoming their chief engineer while earning a cool $156,000 per year salary - not bad at all for a person whose highest educational attainment was high school.
Mthimkhulu's CV claimed he had multiple mechanical engineering degrees, including a prestigious one from Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand and even a doctorate from a university in Germany. As it turned out, those qualifications were found to be completely fabricated.
The 49-year-old's lies first started unraveling in 2015 when he was arrested not long after he resigned from his head of engineering position at Prasa, kicking off a legal saga that recently reached its conclusion this month.
Not only did he fake his way into the role he was wildly unqualified for, but Mthimkhulu continued exploiting his qualifications to take the fraud to the next level while on the job.
The court heard how he forged a job offer from a German company, using it to con Prasa into raising his salary so they wouldn't lose their "talented" engineer to the competition. He was even involved in a $100 million+ deal for dozens of new trains from Spain that ended up being too tall for South African railways.
Now, for his misdeeds, he's been ordered to pay back $323,000 to Prasa, which police said were the proceeds of crime.
In a 2019 interview, Mthimkhulu simply said "I failed to correct the perception that I have it. I just became comfortable with the title." Of course, it's easy to get comfortable hauling in six figures without exactly grinding for it.
Officials have praised the sentence, with the head of the Hawks unit that investigated the case saying it "should serve as a lesson to would be fraudsters that crime doesn't pay."
Phindi Mjonondwane, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority, said that the case sends "a strong message that the perpetrators of white-collar crime will not go unpunished."
While Mthimkhulu plans to appeal, the social media crowd largely celebrated a small win against grifters gaming the system. However, they also called out the administration for allowing something like this to happen in the first place.
Inline image credit: Power FM