Gerhard van Rooyen was arrested in Pretoria on Thursday and transferred to Klerksdorp where he and his wife, Elana, appeared on charges of fraud and theft, spokesperson Sergeant Kelebogile Moleko said.

The case was postponed to Friday, January 5, and the couple is to remain in custody ahead of an expected bail application and while they arrange legal representation.

Moleko said two cases have been opened by people who were allegedly defrauded when they bought cars online.

The car would be advertised and buyers would be asked to deposit money into an account, Moleko said.

However, "they never got their car", she added.

Police have reportedly been searching for Van Rooyen after he apparently advertised a house for rent in newspapers and on Facebook in March 2013. After the money was deposited, he apparently vanished.

Netwerk24 reported in July that Van Rooyen was arrested in Gansbaai in the Western Cape in March 2017 after the Benoni Magistrate's Court issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the alleged scams.

He reportedly used the pseudonym Gerrit Cornelius van Rhyn.

He was released on bail of R8 000 and was supposed to report to the Villieria Police in Pretoria every Wednesday, and not leave Gauteng without informing the Villieria Police or the court.

However, it was reported that he had fled.

Van Rooyen's father Gert was suspected to have been behind the disappearance of six girls between August 1988 and November 1989.

A girl told police early in January that she had escaped from his clutches.

In 1990, while on the run from police, he shot his girlfriend Joey Haarhoff dead and then killed himself in his bakkie.

Another of Van Rooyen's sons, Phillipus Henrico, was sentenced to six years for perjury in 2001 for giving conflicting statements about the fate of the missing girls. He had been sentenced previously for the murder of a teenaged Zimbabwean girl and mutilation of the corpse, for which he had already served a number of years.

News24