Pietermaritzburg - Two women from Nongoma, Zululand, on Tuesday admitted to deceiving insurance companies and government officials with finely planned schemes using unknown cadavers.
They were convicted by acting Judge Sibusiso Mngomezulu in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg and will be sentenced on Wednesday.
Mother of three, Thembi Nsele, 52, said she and others conspired to enrich themselves by claiming insurance with identity documents of people who had died, but whose deaths had not been registered.
She duped Sanlam and Charter Insurance to pay out a total of R120 000, of which the woman who allegedly put her up to the scheme, Nokwaza Mgema, took R70 000.
Nsele walked away with R50 000.
Mgema has not been convicted and her trial has been separated from Nsele's.
But in another case, Mgema was jailed for the murder of a Swazi woman whose body was used in a similar scam.
The second woman convicted on Tuesday was Hlengiwe Nkosi, 40, a mother of four, who co-operated with Amon Mpandla in another scheme.
She admitted she received R5000 from police insurance company Assupol and Mpandla took R50 000.
The two women, Nsele and Nkosi, were accused alongside six others, whose trial has been separated from the pair who pleaded guilty.