Johannesburg - Charges against Radovan Krejcir piled up on Thursday when he was charged alongside three other people for alleged involvement in a money-laundering scheme that defrauded the Central Bank of Swaziland of almost R7.6 million.
This was after an investigation started in 2013 by the SAPS peaked on Thursday when prominent Gauteng businessmen Nico Oosthuizen, Mahendren Munsamy and a third man, Keith Bain, handed themselves over to the police.
The trio appeared alongside Krejcir in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. An affidavit submitted to the court by lead investigator Colonel Cohen Oock, said the group and the employees at the Swazi bank issued fraudulent international transactions to Absa and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).
“The money was then laundered through various entities and persons, and unlawfully and intentionally appropriated,” Oock said.
Sources close to the case explained that Krejcir had been implicated because money laundered through the scam had been used to buy Krejcir’s yacht, which was later seized by Sars as part of a preservation order against the Czech’s assets.
In the affidavit, Oock also explained that the Swaziland bank employees were also arrested on Thursday morning, and appeared in a court in Mbabane.
“More arrests will be made in the Republic of South Africa and the Kingdom of Swaziland as soon as the other suspects are traced,” Oock said in the affidavit.
The colonel also revealed that the three men had known of an investigation against them for some time, and even knew they would be arrested.
The State’s provisional charge sheet alleges the group secured four amounts of between R429 878 and R3 980 823 in October 2013 through Absa and the SARB. The total amount involved was said to be R7 594 467.
The largest amount ultimately arrived in the accounts of Basadi Logix, a company where Munsamy was once a director.
Further checks by The Star revealed that Munsamy was now director of Basadi Oil & Gas and at least 11 other businesses.
The brief proceedings were to ensure the court’s security was not compromised, with the case postponed to mid-September.
Oosthuizen, a director of more than 30 businesses, Munsamy and Bain were granted bail.
The Star