BUSINESS NEWS - Highly sophisticated syndicates are intercepting payouts intended for beneficiaries of deceased estates by fabricating executor and power of attorney documents.
The fraud, known in the financial industry as deceased estate fraud, is on the rise. Criminals often target the Master’s Office, a division of the high court where deceased estates are lodged, or use cybercrime to target legal firms and email chains.
When fraudsters intercept documents submitted to the Master’s Office – usually in paper form, such as a list of assets, a will, a death certificate and a power of attorney – they can use the information to make false claims to insurers, banks and asset managers.
Momentum Group paid out roughly R90 million in its 2026 financial year after criminals managed to steal data from lawyers’ offices where legitimate lawyers were acting as executors of estates.
The syndicates duplicated documents and posed as estate executors to defraud the insurer as part of an operation targeting multiple financial firms.
Group CEO Jeannette Marais said on RSG Geldsake that Momentum’s losses from deceased estate fraud were among the lowest in the industry over the past year. She noted that the financial industry is working together to tackle the problem.
The Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa) said there is an industry-wide collaborative effort to combat the fraud, describing it as highly sophisticated.
Helen du Toit, a member of the Asisa Forensic Standing Committee and an expert on deceased estate fraud, and investigator Johan Steyn, head of life and operations at the South African Insurance Credit Bureau, both identified the Master’s Office as a point of weakness.
“One of the problems with the Master’s Office is hand-delivered documents can be intercepted. With Sars, for example, you log in and submit documents. We need a similar system with the Masters of the Court and Home Affairs so financial institutions can find a source of truth [as to who the correct estate executors are],” says Du Toit.
She adds that although an online system has been introduced at the Master’s Office, several problems remain, meaning documents are still submitted in hard copy.
It is also common in South Africa for people who believe their estate is of low value and their will uncomplicated to appoint a family member as executor, she said.
The family member may then sign a power of attorney giving a lawyer authority to administer the estate. This document can subsequently be intercepted or duplicated by criminals.
Read more on Caxton publication, The Citizen
‘We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news’
