Busted: 31 Loan Sharks Arrested

31 Loan Sharks Arrested With Bags of Cash & SASSA Cards

A tip off led to a raid and arrest of 31 people operating as illegal credit providers in the East Rand.

After receiving a credible tip off, the authorities organised a coordinated raid with the police at the Springs Mall in Gauteng. It resulted in 31 arrests.

A group of 15 men and 16 women were running an illegal credit provider loan shark operation at the mall and were bust with over R100 000 in cash (which the cops confiscated) and 300 SASSA cards.

That’s Illegal

 It is illegal to loan money for a fee or charge interest on a loan without having registered with the National Credit Regulator (NCR). This applies to companies or individuals.

It is also illegal for anyone other than the registered party to have a persons SASSA card. It is common practice by illegal credit providers to ask for these cards, ID documents or bank cards. All of which is illegal. Such demands and behavior can be reported to the police or NCR.

‘Such demands and behavior can be reported to the police or NCR’

When such loan sharks are caught they face serious jail time or large fines. One such loan shark in the Northern Cape was recently fined over R115 000 and could have ended up in jail for 8 years (and the case took 3 years to get resolved). So, you can see how serious this matter is.