Port Elizabeth – A former general manager of an auctioneering company that operates nationwide pleaded guilty in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday to 13 counts of fraud involving just over one million rand.
Fifty-one-year old Vincent Moss spent 15 years of his life at a Port Elizabeth branch of Aucor, a company in the business of selling, auctioning, valuation and storage of property on behalf of private and corporate clients.
Moss was responsible for running day to day operations, liaising with clients, procuring assets for auctions as well as auctioning off property for clients. During 2014 and 2016, several clients entrusted Moss with property to sell off or store, however Moss sold the properties for his own account and the cash of the sale was deposited into his bank account or a bank account belonging to his son, also called Vincent.
During court proceedings on Tuesday, defence attorney Alwyn Griebenow read out his client’s guilty plea. Moss claimed that he was caught between “two fires” as he was using the money to pay for his son’s university tuition.
He said that the cash he stole from clients also fed his wife’s gambling addiction.
Moss claimed that his wife, who has been diagnosed as bipolar, had found out that he had been stealing from clients and threatened to call him out on the crime. …