Jans Daniel Naude, a former manager at a Pretoria-based food manufacturing company, has been sentenced to direct imprisonment after the court found that he abused a position of trust to defraud his employer of more than R2 million over several years.
The Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday sentenced Naude, 44, a former Technical and Production Manufacturing Facilities Manager at Fanatics Trading (Pty) Ltd, to seven years’ imprisonment, with three years suspended for five years. He will effectively serve four years in prison. The court also declared him unfit to possess a firearm.
Naude was convicted on 23 counts of fraud linked to a scheme in which company funds were diverted into his personal bank account. He was employed at Fanatics Trading from 2014 until February 2024 and was responsible for ordering bulk stock from suppliers, including chicken products, for the company’s food manufacturing and meat and poultry processing operations.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), between August 2016 and January 2022, Naude generated fraudulent invoices and delivery notes purporting to be from supplier Federated Meats. He altered the supplier’s legitimate banking details and replaced them with those of his personal First National Bank account, resulting in payments exceeding R2 million being unlawfully transferred to him.
The fraud was uncovered after senior management at Fanatics Trading detected irregular and excessive stock purchases. An independent audit was commissioned, which confirmed the irregularities and prompted the company to report the matter to police. Naude was subsequently summoned to court.
During sentencing proceedings, Naude pleaded guilty and told the court that he committed the offences after feeling aggrieved at being overlooked for a promotion. His legal representative argued for a non-custodial sentence, citing his status as a first-time offender and his role as the primary caregiver to his two minor children.
State Advocate Lerato Phoebe Labuschagne opposed the request, arguing that the offences constituted a serious breach of trust. She told the court that the financial prejudice to the company was significant, to the extent that Fanatics Trading was forced to borrow money to pay staff salaries. Labuschagne urged the court to impose a sentence that would serve as a deterrent to similar white-collar crimes.
In handing down sentence, Magistrate Ignatius de Preez found that Naude failed to demonstrate genuine remorse and only pleaded guilty because the State had a strong case against him. The court also noted that Naude did not disclose what he did with the stolen funds, concluding that a custodial sentence was warranted.
The NPA said it welcomed the outcome, saying the sentence underscored that white-collar crime has real victims and that those who exploit positions of trust for personal gain will be held criminally accountable.
