It was like a scene from a movie as a fraudster tried to make an escape from the 15th floor of a hotel using a hose.
|||Durban - Cornered by police, a fraudster tried to make a daring escape this week by abseiling from the 15th floor of the Blue Waters Hotel - using a fire hose.
The man has allegedly been linked to a syndicate that had defrauded a number of Durban hotels by pretending to be soccer players in town waiting to be signed for another team.
An employee at the Florida Park Hotel tipped off the Blue Waters staff when he overheard the alleged fraudsters discussing their plans earlier in the evening.
The men allegedly use fraudulent credit cards to splurge on booze, food and accommodation.
Police surrounded the Blue Waters Hotel, blocking all entry and exit points.
A senior hotel employee who witnessed the incident and who asked not to be named, said it appeared the man wanted to abseil all the way down the front of the hotel with the fire hose at about 8pm on Monday.
He said the man had grabbed the hose from the reel in the hotel corridor and ran with it through a room, towards the balcony.
He acted after hearing the sirens and spotting the marked cars from a 15th floor room.
The hotel employee said, the suspect was not a guest and had been doing “business” with a hotel guest. Police intercepted him before he could jump.
He said they found him lying on the balcony floor with the hose next to him. It is believed he tried to hide in the corner of the balcony when he heard police storm the room.
“When police found him he mumbled that he was just drunk and had tried to kill himself. They should just leave him alone.
“He did not smell of alcohol and did not appear to be drunk at all - rather a bit nervous,” he said.
Two senior employees at the hotel confirmed the incident.
It is believed that the suspect was part of a 10-man syndicate which defrauded beach hotels by claiming to be soccer players.
“They pretended to be Maritzburg United FC soccer players who are in Durban to be signed to another team,” said an employee at Florida Park Hotel, who also did not want to be named.
“The hotel has now been left with a bill of an estimated R9 000,” she said.
The employee said the matter had been reported to police at Durban Central.
Skhumbuzo Mgenge, a booking consultant at the Florida Park Hotel, confirmed that the men had booked online to stay at the hotel between June 26 and 29.
Another man believed to be part of the syndicate was arrested by police at Belaire Suites Hotel at North Beach, also on Monday evening.
Belaire general manager, Jeremy Gringer, said that the men had been trying to use various cards to pay at the restaurant but many of them failed.
“I called Nedbank to verify the status of the cards and they informed me that they were fraudulent,” said Gringer.
KZN police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, said a 25-year-old man appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on fraud charges.
“He allegedly used a fraudulent credit card at the Belaire Hotel,” Zwane said.
Credit card fraud is rife in South Africa, amounting to R300 million last year, according to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre.
Daily News