Mystery of retired warden and his missing funds

FIVE years after a 54-year-old employee of the Department of Correctional Services took early retirement and received a payout worth millions, only to never be seen again, his sisters have said the case has gone cold despite CCTV footage obtained of a woman and man who used his bank card and his vehicle.

- GENEVIEVE SERRA

The family revealed that R100000 had vanished from their brother, Quinton Bradley Plaatjies’s bank account.

In 2021, a year after his disappearance, the family made a public appeal for help via the Cape's Cold Cases, Weekend Argus.

Plaatjies went on early retirement in 2019, after being employed at the Department of Correctional Services in Somerset East, where he worked for over 35 years.

Plaatjies received a payout of close to R4 million left his home prior to October 2020 to visit relatives in Nysschen Street in Bethelsdorp in Gqeberha, and was never seen again.

His brand-new Ford Ecosport, for which he paid cash, was found abandoned on November 7, 2020, outside Beer Shack in Beach Road, Gqeberha.

Items such as his false teeth were also left behind and his car was handed over as part of evidence.

The Hawks was also roped in to assist with the investigation.