Former law firm employee jailed for 7 years over R13m fraud

2026-03-06 - 15:13

A 53-year-old accounts secretary’s days of stealing money from her employer have landed her behind bars. Alwena Smith, a former Stellenbosch law firm employee, has been ordered to serve seven years in prison for defrauding the company of more than R13 million. Plea agreement reveals scale of fraud charges Smith entered a plea and sentencing agreement with the state for 171 counts of fraud, 171 counts of interference with data and four counts of money laundering. The Belville Commercial Crimes Court sentenced her to 12 years’ direct imprisonment for the fraud charges, with five years suspended on condition that she is not convicted of fraud, theft, or corruption. This means she will only serve seven years in prison for those charges. The Court also sentenced her to 12 months’ direct imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years, provided that she is not found guilty of interference with data during that period. Smith was further sentenced to 12 years’ direct imprisonment for four counts of money laundering, which were wholly suspended for five years on condition that she is not convicted of a similar crime. The court ordered the sentences to run concurrently and declared her unfit to possess a firearm. ALSO READ: Former bank employee granted bail for theft and fraud of R1.9 million Fake profiles and hundreds of transactions National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said the senior accounts secretary noted in her plea and sentencing agreement that she worked for a law firm that specialised in notaries, conveyancing, estate law, and third-party claims. “She was employed from March 2006 until she was fired in May 2018, managing day-to-day income and expenditure of receipting monies as well as regular banking duties,” Ntabazalila said on Friday. Smith had access to electronic computer systems and files. “Clients would pay monies or retainers into the law firm’s trust account. Whenever work is done on a client’s file, payment would be deducted from the client’s account or retainer held in the law firm’s trust bank account. Her duties also included processing electronic payments and transactions involving the law firm’s debtors and creditors, and she was assigned an internet profile for the firm’s trust bank account. Smith used her internet profile and her colleague’s internet profile to create fictitious profiles on the trust account profiles and made 171 transfers into her private bank account. “An investigation revealed that 171 illegal cheques were withdrawn from different client files she had access to. The investigation further revealed she had stolen R13 267 096.59 between January 2016 and 2 April 2018,” Ntabazalila said. Regarding the 171 charges of interfering with data, Smith created false beneficiaries to conceal payments to her private bank accounts. She deliberately made spelling mistakes in creating false beneficiaries of existing clients so that the law firm’s banking system would not show that the beneficiaries already existed. “As part of concealing her fraud activities, she paid back R6.5 million to the law firm’s trust account.” ALSO READ: Senior health official ‘steps aside’ after arrest on corruption charges Stolen funds routed through private company Ntabazalila said before starting with her fraudulent activities, Smith registered a company, Garda TeK (Pty) Ltd, of which she was the sole director. She paid some of the stolen money into her company’s bank accounts. “Some of the money was paid into the bank accounts of her husband and daughter, to whom she lied that she had received an inheritance,” the NPA spokesperson said. “The husband and daughter were cleared after she confessed that they were not aware of her fraudulent actions.”