South African woman sentenced to 50 years in prison for $28 million theft

A woman from South Africa has been given a 50-year jail sentence for stealing $28 million from her employer.

Hildegard Steenkamp took money from the healthcare company she worked for as an accountant in Gauteng province for 13 years Steenkamp admitted to doing fraud 336 times.

She stood in front of a judge, who said he had never dealt with a case where someone stole so much money.
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Magistrate Phillip Venter was very surprised to hear that one worker stole a lot of money from their boss. He found it really hard to believe.

Steenkamp said that her husband was mean to her and made her steal the money. Venter disagreed and said “she did the actions by herself”.

Forensic investigators discovered that Steenkamp used the money to pay for her expensive lifestyle, including gambling, buying jewelry, and traveling.

In just one night, she spent $263,000 at a casino.

The court found out that Steenkamp spent a lot of money, around $1. 6 million, on trips around the world and went to Dubai often.

She had a job at the company from 2004 to 2017, but then she quit.

Steenkamp made this plan because she was allowed to add or remove people the company owed money to from the list, the South African police said.

She put her husband’s name on the list of people she owes money to and started putting money into his bank account.

Steenkamp turned herself in to the police in 2018 and was allowed to leave on bail. She admitted she was guilty earlier this year.