This week our story took place in Calvinia at the Calvinia Specialised Commercial Crime Court last year, on 1 October 2025. Dawn Celeste Pieterson (46) is a former Home Affairs employee who claimed funeral insurance payouts by fraudulently declaring living people dead. She received her sentence this year on 26 January 2026.
Dawn’s crimes took place from February 2019 to September 2022 whilst she was employed at the Department of Home Affairs in Calvinia. As an employee, part of her duties involved having access to the National Population Register.
Dawn took out funeral covers with various insurance companies and nominated herself as the beneficiary. To manipulate the National population Register, she falsely issued BI-1663 forms (notice of death forms) in order to claim the fake deaths of her victims.
The system would then register the affected person as deceased, which resulted in creating havoc and serious problems in the day-to-day lives of her victims.
Four reputable insurance companies suffered a combined financial loss of R334 634 due to the illegal funeral claims. She was found guilty on 9 counts of fraud, as well as 2 counts of contravening a section of Birth and Death Registration Act.
She was sentenced to 5 years’ direct imprisonment. For contravening the Birth and Death Registration, Dawn received 12 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for 5 years. Dawn was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.
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Source: SA News and My Broadband