Prishne Khan, a 37-year-old former finance manager who hid inside a deep freezer to evade arrest, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court for 63 counts of fraud and theft involving over R3 million.
Khan, who had been on the run for a year after absconding from her trial in 2023, was arrested on August 30, 2024, at her new home in Nigel, Gauteng. During her court appearance on Monday, she was sentenced to a further four-year jail term for theft amounting to R350,000, which will run concurrently with her 10-year sentence.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) revealed that Khan’s fraudulent activities began when she worked as a bookkeeper at the Northerns Cricket Union between 2015 and 2017. Instead of paying service providers, she altered banking details on invoices to divert funds into accounts controlled by her husband and cousin, misappropriating R350,000.
After resigning, Khan became a finance manager at Customer Loyalty Consultants (Pty) Ltd, where she manipulated customer banking details to steal funds. Although initially unable to execute payments due to a required token held by another employee, she later obtained the token and siphoned over R3 million into her accounts between September 2017 and March 2018.
Khan’s fraudulent schemes were uncovered when the bank flagged suspicious transactions, leading to her arrest and court appearance in 2018. She pleaded guilty, citing financial difficulties and claiming she used the stolen funds for necessities, including buying a car for her husband. However, investigations revealed she had squandered the money on gambling.
During sentencing, Khan sought leniency, citing her responsibilities toward her three children and her health issues. However, prosecutor Pulane Segalo argued that Khan’s actions were motivated by greed and betrayal of her employers’ trust. The court agreed, stating that her guilty plea was not out of remorse but rather a realization of the consequences of her actions.
The NPA welcomed the sentence, reaffirming its commitment to prosecuting financial crimes and holding offenders accountable.
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