Pic: Twitter
Police Minister Bheki Cele on Friday has issued a warning to the numerous social media users with accounts purporting to be him and dishing out abundant messages to the public, to desist.
“Minister Cele has denounced any social media account in his name as fake and has issued a stern warning to impostors whose motives for impersonating the minister cannot be for anything else but to draw unsuspecting social media users into their criminal activities,” said Brigadier Mathapelo Peters.
Peters, the acting national police spokesperson, said the police were tracking the impostors.
“Investigations by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) currently underway [are] at an advanced stage to identify and locate these fake account operators, and bring them to book,” Peters said.
She said the fake accounts bearing Cele’s name and pictures have grown in popularity, with one on Twitter attracting more than 60 000 followers.
“There are at this stage, more than 160 accounts across Twitter and Facebook bearing as profiles, pictures of Minister Cele and his particulars, with some pictures as old as about 10 years when the minister was still the national commissioner of the South African Police Service," Peters said.
- African News Agency
