Facebook rapist Thabo Bester reportedly fled to Zimbabwe to lay low after escaping from the Mangaung Maximum Security Prison where he allegedly paid R5 million to at least nine prison warders who helped him break free.
Bester and his Zim smugglers were then involved in a gunfight with soldiers guarding the Beitbridge Border where they were forced to ditch their car and run on foot.
One of the smugglers was injured during the shooting, while the car was impounded and remained at the border for months, reports the Sunday Independent.
Bester was allegedly dik gestryk.
According to one of his former business partners, they got involved with Bester after his girlfriend, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, invited them to join a group of companies owned by Tom Motsepe, a South African billionaire living in New York.
But one of the partners noted a resemblance between “Motsepe” and Bester, and hired a private investigator.
The partners confronted Bester and he came clean about his identity but denied that he had raped or killed any woman.
He claimed to have taken the fall for two sons of senior politicians, whose names were given to the Sunday Independent.
“Bester basically said he was poor when he was outside but a multi-millionaire behind bars because the sons of the two politicians have paid him very well and they were also going to help him to escape from prison,” the source said.
It was the Sunday Independent that had made the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) aware that Bester had faked his death to escape from the privately run jail in Bloemfontein in May last year.
Police last week confirmed the burnt body found in Bester’s cell died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head, and was already dead prior to the arson incident.
Bester was serving a life sentence for the murder of Joburg model and car saleswoman Nomfundo Tyhulu.
This week, a Mangaung prison official told the Sunday Independent that Bester allegedly paid R5m to nine of his colleagues who helped him escape.
“The money was paid in cash over a period of time, about R500 000 each, and the mastermind pocketed R1m,” the official said.
One of the officials implicated and subsequently fired, Senohe Matsoara, posted a picture of himself on Facebook in front of a brand new VW T-Roc 2.0 which was bought from a Pretoria dealership in January 2022. The car is worth more than R600 000.
Matsoara was supposed to be off-duty on the night Bester ‘died’ but surprisingly reported to work.
TimesLive reported last week that Bester “allegedly walked out of Mangaung Maximum Security Prison disguised as a warden, with the help of prison officials”.
dailyvoice@inl.co.za