KZN police are hunting further suspects after a woman, who recently received a RAF payout, was kidnapped from her Sundumbili home along with seven of her relatives.
- Police are searching for more suspects after a woman was kidnapped from her home in KZN, along with seven relatives, after criminals reportedly targeted them for her RAF payout.
- The seven relatives were released at KwaDabeka, more than 100km from where they were taken, while she was transported further to an unknown location in Phoenix.
- She was found unharmed by police, with three suspects arrested and the search on for more, in the latest of an alarming spate of RAF payout-linked kidnappings.
KwaZulu-Natal police are on the hunt for more suspects after a gang stormed a family homestead in Chappies Section, Mandeville, in Sundumbili in the early hours of Friday – kidnapping an entire family, including a woman who had recently received a Road Accident Fund (RAF) payout.
Police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda, confirmed to News24 on Saturday that the seven people kidnapped along with the woman were her relatives and that all eight victims were in the same homestead when the gang struck.
What followed was a terrifying journey across KwaZulu-Natal.
From Sundumbili, in the iLembe district north of Durban, the kidnappers drove their victims more than 104km south, a journey of over an hour, before abandoning the seven relatives at KwaDabeka, a township just outside Pinetown.
But the woman at the centre of their plan was not set free.
She was taken further, eventually ending up in Phoenix, approximately 99km from where she had been snatched in the early hours of the morning and roughly 15km from where her family had been abandoned on the roadside.
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The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Tracking Team was activated, locating one of the two vehicles used in the kidnapping and arresting three suspects.
Netshiunda said investigations then led police to Phoenix, where the woman, who is in her mid to late 30s, was found alive and unharmed.
But police say the job is not done.
“The search is on for more possible suspects. The suspects attempted several transactions to no avail, however, they managed to make purchases amounting to R30 000. Police are appealing to RAF beneficiaries not to disclose their payouts or brag about the money,” said Netshiunda.
Friday’s kidnapping is the latest in a deeply alarming national pattern of criminals specifically targeting RAF beneficiaries.
Just weeks before Friday’s Sundumbili kidnapping, the Hawks in the Eastern Cape froze more than R800 000 linked to the abduction of a Libode man on 12 April 2026.
That victim was kidnapped by four men, one dressed in a police uniform, driven to a forest near Mthatha, assaulted, and forced to authenticate bank transfers on his mobile phone before being abandoned the following morning.
Lubabalo Gift Mofokeng, 40, has since been arrested in connection with that case.
In August 2025, the NPA announced that Present Sibuyi, 31, was sentenced to 25 years’ direct imprisonment in Mbombela after he targeted a victim over an RAF payout in Bushbuckridge on 6 January 2025, committing murder, kidnapping and robbery with aggravating circumstances in the process.
READ | RAF claimants warned to report threats after man appears in court for alleged 9-day kidnapping
In May 2025, the Hawks arrested a 25-year-old man in connection with the kidnapping of an Eastern Cape man with a R300 000 RAF payout who was lured by men posing as doctors and driven nearly 800km to Klerksdorp, where his bank account was drained before he was eventually freed.
In February 2025, a Sundumbili man, who had also recently received a RAF payout, was kidnapped from the same area alongside two teenage girls, with police tracing the suspects to Durban where the victims were rescued.
In October 2024, a man appeared in the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court in KZN accused of kidnapping a woman and holding her captive for nine days to access her relative’s RAF payout.
