A Simon's Town farmer and the workers were targeted for extortion when a man posing as an Eskom employee claimed a ticket had been issued to disconnect power at Rocklands Farm.

Listen to this article 5 min Listen to this article 5 min Dr Paul Rowe, the owner of Rocklands Farm in Simon's Town, received a flood of alarming messages on Monday, 5 August from a man claiming to be "Davis Mfundo", an Eskom official. Mfundo told Rowe a ticket had been issued to disconnect the farm's power supply due to tampering with a prepaid electricity box. To prevent the disconnection, he demanded a payment of R5,000.

"He claimed to work for Eskom and said he had received a notice that one of the prepaid boxes had been tampered with, and he was coming to cut the power," Rowe explained. The man persistently pressured Rowe for the money, threatening to cut off the electricity if the payment wasn't made.

Simon's Town, however, is not under Eskom's jurisdiction but is serviced by the City of Cape Town. The power utility confirmed there is no employee by the name of Davis Mfundo.

In a series of WhatsApp voice notes, Mfundo tried to coerce Rowe, who was not at the farm at the time, to pay up to avoid disconnection.

"I can stop the team [Mfundo's crew]...