What would you do if you suddenly found nearly $1,000,000 in your bank account?
Would you go on a spending spree, or would you fess up out of fear of the consequences?
I don’t think many of us will ever have to make this decision in real life, but one person who did was student Sibongile Mani, who attended the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) in South Africa.
Mani, who was 32 at the time, relied on benefits to help pay for her school and typically received around $100 each month to spend on food.
However, one morning she woke up to find the government aid scheme had accidentally sent her 14 million rands (approximately $760,000 at the time of writing), instead.
Though the money had been sent to her by accident, Mani decided to make the most of the opportunity by going on a huge shopping spree.
Mani spent hundreds of dollars a day. (Facebook)
In the following days, Mani splashed the cash on designer clothes, the latest iPhone and expensive bottles of liquor.
She’d spent more than $40,000 of the money she received when she was finally caught through a bank receipt she left behind at a supermarket.
Samkelo Mqhayi, branch secretary of the South African Students Congress, told Herald Live at the time: “She was just suddenly spending so much. Her supermarket receipt which was leaked showed she had 13.6m rand in her account and she had been throwing parties for her friends and showering them with gifts without worry.”
Mani was reported to police and she was arrested in 2017, when she was charged with theft and fraud.
In 2022, Mani was sentenced to five years in prison; a decision which her lawyer, Asanda Pakade, appealed on the grounds that the student hadn’t been a danger to society and hadn’t sought out the money that landed in her account.
Mani was not ordered to repay the money. (Getty Stock Photo)
Mani herself alleged that she considered the money to be a ‘miracle’ and a ‘gift from God’, saying she ‘didn’t think twice’ about spending it.
In a hearing at the East London High Court in Makhanda in 2023, two judges agreed to suspend Mani’s five-year sentence on the condition that she committed no theft or fraud in that time.
Mani was also ordered to complete 14 weeks of community service and undergo counselling – but she was not ordered to pay back the money she’d spent.
After the judges agreed to suspend her sentence, Pakade said Mani was ‘very happy’ that she didn’t have to go to prison and was ‘looking to putting all this behind her and starting again’.
“She is putting her life which was left in tatters back together again and is looking forward to starting afresh and is very grateful that the court took the decisions that it took,” the lawyer said.