One of South Africa's richest men, Christo Wiese, may get his é600 000 (about R7-million) back, after the cash was seized at Heathrow airport in London in 2009, a UK official said on Wednesday.
"If the UK Border Agency does not suspect it is the proceeds of crime, then the money will be returned," UK Home Office spokesperson Polo Guilbert-Wright said in an e-mail on Wednesday.
"UK Border Agency officers have powers to detain any amount of cash that is declared or that they suspect is the proceeds of crime using powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002."
This applied to travellers departing or arriving from European Union (EU) and non-EU destinations.
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Earlier this week, Wiese, who is the chairperson of Shoprite, told Sapa he was carrying the money from his safety deposit box in London to his safety deposit box in Luxembourg and that both countries were EU members.
MoneyWeb reported this week that UK customs had confiscated the money from Wiese in April 2009.
He said the matter was in the hands of his UK lawyers and that a hearing regarding the refund would take place in November.
"I was taking the money to Luxembourg, as I wanted to start trading again after the banking crisis," Wiese said.
Wiese said the matter was "a bureaucratic bungle" and that customs had given him no reason for the seizure of his funds. He confirmed he had never been arrested.
"They told me I could go, as long as I left the money." - Sapa
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This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on July 29, 2010
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