November 2008 | Vol 1 | Issue 47
Post Office officials try to steal Mandela to sell on eBay
PRETORIA. The launch of a new set of South African postage stamps celebrating Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday was disrupted today as a group of Post Office employees tried to steal and sell the iconic statesman. According to police the clerks had put the former president in a canvass bag inside a delivery van, and planned to auction him to collectors on eBay.
Guests and dignitaries at the launch of the stamps said they suspected nothing initially, and believed the event was on track despite the continued no-show of Mandela four hours after the scheduled start.
"He's a celebrity and a member of the ANC," events coordinator SuMarieNette van Zyl.
"Everybody knows that celebrities are always one hour late for everything, and with members of the ANC that goes out to between two and three hours.
"Plus, he moves very slowly, so we didn't think four hours was excessive."
However, she said, guests and organizers became "restless and concerned" when Post Office employees announced his arrival and ushered him into the venue.
"The Post Office people said, 'Ladies and gentlmen, Mr Nelson Mandela!', and they brought this old guy in. He didn't look anything like Madiba. He was short and a bit fat.
"And he was white."
Van Zyl said some guests had voiced their concern that something "terrible" had happened to Mandela, and the Post Office employees had hurried the imposter out, before returning ten minutes later with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mandela.
"They did it again. They said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Nelson Mandela!'
"That's when our guests became hostile, and broke out of the conference venue, and found the van in the alley outside."
She said they had discovered Mandela almost immediately.
"There was nothing in the van except for some stolen Amazon products, and a six-foot canvass sack that was wriggling slowly from side to side.
"The Madiba dance is unmistakable."
Four Post Office clerks were detained and questioned by police.
According to Inspector Tjops Visagie, three admitted that they had intended to sell Mandela on eBay to American collectors. The fourth clerk was later released, after it was established he had known nothing of the plan and had only come to the event for the free sausage-rolls.
"Collectors are willing to pay top dollar for world statesmen," said Visagie. "Someone like Madiba could have fetched anything up to $250,000, maybe more if he was wearing one of his trademark shirts."
He added that it was fortunate that Madiba was "no longer in his original packaging", as this would have made him irresistible to more professional and well-organised collectors.
"They wouldn't have buggered around with something as Mickey Mouse as the SA Post Office," said Visagie. "They would have overnight-bagged him with FedEx or DHL, and that would have been that."
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