Pretoria - The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, yesterday granted an order for a liquidator to be appointed in the case against David Scott Laughland and his company Agri Smart Investments (ASI).
Laughland allegedly conned investors out of millions in investments in a chicken farm that seemingly did not exist. He and his business associates allegedly conned people out of their money and then closed shop.
Laughland is one of the two men who rented Oscar Pistorius’s former house - in which the Paralympian killed Reeva Steenkamp. They were later recorded saying they would hold parties there.
There was a backlash after the video surfaced online, but Laughland told the Pretoria News that it was simply a publicity stunt to market ASI.
According to the attorney handling the matter, Chris van Niekerk, a liquidator had previously been appointed on a provisional basis.
He said his team would now commence with liquidation interrogations and the major role players would be called to testify and account on where the money had gone.
“If they can’t explain they’ll have to give it back. Failure to do so will result in us sequestrating them and taking every asset we can get from them,” Van Niekerk said.
He said bank statements obtained with the help of FNB assisted them in finding out that one of the accounts received R86 million from investors in the past year. The whole amount was transferred to other bank accounts.
PRETORIA NEWS