A Zululand councillor and his Zambian cohort were fined R5 000 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment - suspended for four years - on Thursday, for what a Durban magistrate described as "a stupid offence".
Pongola councillor Mquiseni Lymon Sibiya and Zambian national Sabby Kakandwe pleaded guilty to credit-card fraud in which they attempted to use three foreign credit cards to obtain R76 800.
Regional magistrate Gert Botha agreed with specialist prosecutor Vanita Armu that fraud was an "extremely serious and prevalent" offence. However, he took into account that the transactions were "doomed to failure from the outset".
The men's defence attorney, Abdul Shaikjee, argued that the NatWest card, Standard Bank Charter card and EuroCard needed special clearance from the banks.
"It was rather a stupid offence, which seems to indicate that you are both amateurs," Botha told the first-time offenders.
Kakandwe approached Sibiya a few days before the fraud was committed on January 20, telling him he had the cards and that he could "do a transaction" with them at a Paulpietersburg car dealership's Speedpoint machine.
They arranged this with Laurens de Beer, who worked at the dealership and who contacted the police and arranged a sting operation.
Botha took into account that Sibiya was the sole breadwinner in his family of three wives and 13 children, but said that as a councillor he "should have known better".
Kakandwe had been in South Africa legally since his arrival in 1994 and had a common-law wife and two children.
He employed several South Africans at his cafe/tavern in Hillbrow, Johannesburg.
Botha pointed out that it was usual to jail fraudsters, but said that the particular circumstances of each man, and the fact that there had been no actual loss of funds, had kept them from being jailed.