A late-night encounter at a Gqeberha guest house spiralled into a months-long nightmare of threats and fake police calls — leaving businessman Gary Woodhead fighting to protect both his name and his livelihood.
In the Gqeberha commercial crimes court, Woodhead came face to face with the woman accused of being involved in orchestrating the scheme which left him R750,000 out of pocket.
Mulalo Tshitambo, a 50-year-old accountant employed by the Gauteng department of employment and labour, is charged with extortion, fraud, corruption and defeating the ends of justice.
It is alleged she masterminded an elaborate plot involving a sex worker, a bogus police officer and even a fake judge — all in an attempt to extract nearly R750,000 from Woodhead.
According to the charge sheet, Woodhead, the owner of a cardboard manufacturing company and former chair of the Kings Beach Lifesaving Club, was allegedly extorted between February and November 2022.
This after the state said he spent time with a sex worker in Gqeberha in February 2022.
Afterwards, he reportedly paid her for her services and left.
However, in the days that followed, he said he received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Warrant Officer Makwena from the Durban police.
Tshitambo had allegedly conspired with the sex worker and the person posing as Makwena to extort money from him under the pretence that the sex worker had opened a rape charge against him.
The fake cop further told Woodhead that he was also being investigated for fraud for using counterfeit money when he paid the sex worker.
Woodhead paid the money, hoping to keep his indiscretions secret.
He took to the stand for the first time this week after Tshitambo pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her.
I wanted to keep it to myself. I didn’t want other people to know about it. Because I was ashamed of having paid this money — and yes, I’m a very proud person.
— Gary Woodhead, businessman
Tshitambo, from Atteridgeville in Pretoria, believed to be the face of a larger criminal group, was arrested in Gqeberha in April 2023 after she had arranged to meet an investigator — during a trap that was set up to catch her out — and allegedly handed over R30,000 in cash for a dummy docket.
Taking the stand, Woodhead said he was threatened that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
The prospect, Woodhead said, affected him badly. “I started becoming a nervous person,” he said.
He said he could not run his business well because he had the thought of going to prison hanging over him.
Asked by state advocate Wilhelm de Villiers if he received any professional help for his anxiety, Woodhead said he had not.
“I wanted to keep it to myself. I didn’t want other people to know about it. Because I was ashamed of having paid this money — and yes, I’m a very proud person.”
Explaining what prompted him to eventually report the alleged extortion, Woodhead said he realised that he was being extorted and that it was not going to end.
“I reached a stage where I said, you know, this can’t be happening. I made that decision.
“I’m a religious person. I prayed about it, and my answer was, Gary, go and report it.
“My main reason to report it was to try help other people from getting caught in scams like this.
“It took me a long time to realise I’d been scammed.”
After reporting the case, he said, he blocked the alleged perpetrators’ calls, but even that did not stop them.
“There were one or two times where I was sent an SMS saying: ‘You think you can get away from us by blocking us.’”
Woodhead said he never met Tshitambo but was convinced she was the “judge” who was introduced telephonically to him by Makwena.
He said he had made payments amounting to R355,050 via instant money transfers to different cellphone numbers from his personal and business accounts, including to the “judge”.
During cross-examination, defence advocate Asher Khosa asked Woodhead how he could be certain that the so-called judge was his client before court.
“Is it your testimony that you don’t know the accused before court?”
Woodhead responded: “That is correct ... but I believe she is the ‘judge’.”
Khosa responded: “I’m not talking about your beliefs. Are you able to tell the court you have evidence that [my client] is the judge that was referred to you by Mr Makwena?”
Woodhead said: “Like I stated before, I’ve never seen her before.”
Earlier, Khosa said Tshitambo had made some admissions relating to payments that were made into her bank account and the extortion of an investigating officer, among other statements that were not in dispute.
According to the charge sheet, the “warrant officer” initially told Woodhead that if he was willing to pay R10,000, they could make arrangements to have the rape case against him withdrawn.
Despite paying the initial amount, in the months that followed he received numerous phone calls from strange men and women, all with different phone numbers, threatening him with prosecution if he did not pay them more.
Fearing prosecution, he paid, and by November 2022 had handed over R355,050 via instant money transfers to various cellphone numbers and a further R390,500 into an FNB account.
When the demands for more money continued, Woodhead finally approached the police in December 2022 to report a case of extortion.
Through the course of the investigation, the FNB account was allegedly traced to Tshitambo.
The matter was postponed to June 22.
The Herald
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