Zainul Dawood|Published
Nearly six years after two Durban businessmen used fake salary slips to secure more than R1.1 million in vehicle finance, the VW Golf 7 R-Line bought in the scam has been recovered.
This while a second vehicle also bought in 2020,a R549,000 Porsche Cayenne SUV Diesel Tiptronic, remains missing after the businessmen drove off with it.
Munsamy Padayachee, 60, the employee who bought the Porsche and a Golf 7 R-Line for his bosses, pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicle finance fraud. Padayachee was sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment by the Durban Regional Court in November 2025.
In his plea submitted to the court, Padayachee said after being discharged from a rehabilitation facility for alcohol addiction, he sought employment. Two men offered him a job as a driver and general assistant with a salary and accommodation on the premises in Durban.
The vehicle-finance scheme
The men, who cannot be named because they were not charged with the crime, told him they were brothers. Padayachee said he handed over his ID document to one of them so that he could be registered for the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
Later he was taken to an ABSA bank in Verulam where a bank account was opened in his name.
“The men told me that due to my alcohol addiction and the irresponsibility that arises, they would hold my banking cards to secure the money and would give me money from there for my living expenses, to which I agreed. I had no access to the account or the funds in the account,” Padayachee said.
Starting a car dealership
In February 2020, the brothers told him they were starting a luxury car rental business and required his assistance in acquiring the vehicles in his name.
“They told me that, not being South African citizens, they could not obtain hire purchase credit and required my assistance to apply for finance in my name, through certain contacts they were acquainted with.”
Padayachee was taken to a car dealership in Durban where he applied for vehicle finance from Standard Bank to buy the Porsche Cayenne valued at R549,000.
A fake salary advice stated that he was employed as an area manager earning a salary of R39,000 per month. The finance was approved in March 2020 and the brothers took delivery of the car.
Pleading guilty
Padayachee said he applied for vehicle finance through ABSA in March 2020, this time to buy a Golf 7 R-Line valued at R577,000. The bank statements and salary advice reflected that he was employed as an area manager earning a salary of R39,000 per month.
“We then took delivery of the VW Golf 7 R-Line motor vehicle, after I was asked to pose for a photograph with the vehicle. By signing the finance agreements and delivery documents, I aided and abetted the brothers to misrepresent to the banks that the information and documents submitted were, in all material respects, true and correct, and that, through my signature of the contracts, I moved the banks to act on such misrepresentations,” he said.
Porsche remains missing
Padayachee pleaded guilty to fraud from ABSA amounting to R577,000 and Standard Bank, R549,000.
“I made a common purpose with them on the promise that once the business took off, I would be paid an extra R10,000 per month. We went to the dealership in Anton Lembede Street and I signed the necessary paperwork. I accompanied the brothers to the dealership. I was at all times assured that in good faith that they would be responsible for the payment of the installments and that my name was being used only because they could not obtain finance because they were foreign nationals.”
He said once the businessmen took possession of the vehicles, he never saw them again. He had no knowledge of where the vehicles were. Padayachee was arrested in April 2021.
“I intentionally allowed them to use my ID document to make applications for vehicle finance agreements, knowing that I did not meet the qualifying criteria for hire purchase,” he said.
Prosecutor Surekha Marimuthu said the Golf 7 R-Line was recovered in February. However, the Porsche is still missing.
IOL