Marleen Konings: The Missing Dutch Girl
Habitual Criminal
Ferdinandt Mostert's criminal career stretched back all the way to 1979, when he had been found guilty of theft and fraud in the Northern Transvaal—what is now the Limpopo province. Since then he has compiled a list of 21 convictions, mostly for fraud and theft, spanning all four of the original provinces of South Africa (since the African National Congress became the ruling party, the provinces have increased to nine).
In 1986 already, he had been declared a habitual criminal. He had received in excess of 30 years of imprisonment, and broke his parole conditions on each of the three occasions he'd been released early.
Upon granting Mostert parole in June of 1994, the Board stated that he was completely rehabilitated. If a 24-year-old girl weren't missing, it would have been funny.
In April 1998, mere months after he had been released (again), Mostert was sentenced to eight years in Carolina, and incarcerated in the Losperfontein Prison. After he was released on parole in June 2003, Mostert boarded with a prison guard he had befriended while incarcerated. He stayed with Pieter Moolman and his wife until November, and was described as "helpful", according to Die Burger of January 17, 2004. On November 20, 2003, Mostert accompanied Moolman to Nelspruit to go and purchase a car. Moolman had R15,400 ($2,525) on him. En route, Mostert gave him an energy drink and Moolman later passed out. When he awoke, Mostert was gone, along with the money. Moolman was admitted to hospital for poisoning. Mostert also had Mrs. Moolman's cellular phone, which he later sold in Mossel Bay.
Earlier, Mostert had told the Moolmans that he had cancer and had even borrowed money from them for treatment at a clinic in Johannesburg. Despite the incident in November, Mostert still sent SMS messages to Moolman, the last of which was on December 2, claiming that he had only one month left to live.
The police determined that no one at the clinic had ever heard of Mostert, nor had anyone seen him before.