What can only be described as a modern day SA Bonnie and Clyde ill-fated love story came crashing down last week when South Africa’s most wanted fugitives Thabo Bester and Nandipha Magudumana were arrested in Tanzania and extradited back to South Africa after eluding the authorities for almost a year and living in plain sight.
Around 4am, the two arrived at Lanseria Airport, which is located north of Johannesburg. Bester was put in a SAPS nyala, while Magudumana was put in a private vehicle with female officers present. She was later taken to the province of Free State, where she will probably have to answer to something.
Who is Thabo Bester?
Having faked his death in 2022, Thabo Bester, a felon with a criminal record, managed to escape from the Mangaung Correctional Facility in South Africa. He evaded capture for a year before being apprehended on Friday, April 7, 2023 in Arusha, Tanzania.
He and his accomplice, Dr. Nandipha Magudumana, were also taken into custody. Bester was a notorious “Facebook rapist” who was found guilty of both rape and murder. He and Magudumana managed the fraudulent Arum Properties construction company while Bester was incarcerated, getting a number of clients to pay millions of Rand for unfulfilled construction projects.
Who is Dr Nandipha Magudumana?
Prior to the crisis, Terry Pheto and Redi Tlhabi from the radio show Redi Tlhabi both praised Magudumana as a star doctor who was popular with everyone.
Magudumana is the CEO and founder of the Morningside, Sandton-based Optimum medical aesthetics solution business.
She had become known for leading a luxurious lifestyle and driving expensive vehicles. She also made the 2018 lists of the Top 20 Most Influential Young South Africans, SADC Top 100 Young Leaders, and Mail & Guardian 200 Young SA.
When she hosted elaborate birthday parties for her two young girls, people would see her status on social media.
Last month, Magudumana stunned a lot of people when she neglected to pick up her kids from school after dropping them there. According to rumors, the school had to contact her estranged spouse to pick them up.
Magudumana knowingly assisted Bester in escaping in a significant way. According to reports, she planned for the means of transport utilized to elude the law enforcement officers who were hot on the fugitive’s trail.
Thabo and Nandipha ill-fated love story
On May 3, 2022, Bester managed to escape from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in the Free State, a maximum-security prison, in a complex strategy that exposed the systemic failure of our state.
It was revealed this week that the government was aware from October of last year that Bester did not perish in a fire in a single cell at the facility and that the body found in the cell, in fact, belonged to someone else. This information came to light during two days of questioning by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services.
Even with this knowledge, Bester and his collaborator Dr. Mandipha Magudumana were not found until GroundUp reported on the incident in March of this year.
Then there are the two heroic police officers, one raised the red flag that Dr. Magudumana had taken control of several bodies from the mortuary, prompting her to file an urgent case in the Johannesburg-based Gauteng High Court. The State Attorney was subsequently apprised of that application by another police official, which led to the submission of the responding affidavit, which completely unravelled the case.
What will happen to Dr Mandipha Magudumana?
Due to her role in the prison break of her partner, convicted murderer and rapist Bester, for which she may go to jail, the cosmetic doctor’s reputation has recently taken a beating.
On Thursday, after being returned to the country via extradition from Tanzania, where she had fled with Bester, she made her first appearance in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court.
She is accused of both murder and complicity. She would also be accused of fraud and of defiling the remains of the dead, National Police Commissioner General Fanie Masemola further disclosed.
Her case was continued until April 17 so that bail information and a potential application could be made.
