Whose vibrator was it anyway?

Advocate Devraj Woodhaymal, left, and Mervyn Dennis seen leaving the Durban Magistrate's Court. Picture: SUPPLIED

Advocate Devraj Woodhaymal, left, and Mervyn Dennis seen leaving the Durban Magistrate's Court. Picture: SUPPLIED

Published Feb 5, 2016

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Durban - A Financial Services Board inspector testified on Thursday that he left a vibrator behind after he conducted a search and seizure at the office of Ponzi scheme accused Mervyn Dennis.

Gregory Mabuza, who worked for the board in 2005, testified that he conducted a search at Dennis’s Global Investments office in Durban in 2005.

Mabuza is the State’s first witness in the trial against Dennis and his sister Maryann Peter in the Durban Regional Court.

The trial started this week, 11 years after an investigation was launched into Dennis's business affairs. After a withdrawal of charges in 2006, they were reinstated in 2010 and an application for the prosecution to be permanently stayed was refused in 2012. Dennis and Peter have pleaded not guilty.

Read:  Global Investments fraud trial begins

The State alleges that Dennis started an investment club, Global Investments, in 1998. He allegedly encouraged investors to pool their capital and invest in the club and promised the money would be invested on the JSE, and returns would be excellent. After one year, investors could reinvest or withdraw their money, but many were encouraged to reinvest. Most were pensioners from Merebank, Isipingo, Phoenix and Chatsworth.

It is alleged that about R139 million was invested in the club from 1998 to 2005. However, only R4.9 million was invested on the stock market and R61 million was used for repayments to existing investors. The rest was spent by Dennis on gambling, jewellery and payments to car dealerships.

Most of the investors lost their money and Dennis was sequestrated in May 2005.

On Thursday Mabuza said he and his assistant had seized documents after a complaint by an investor. He said before an analysis could be done, Dennis was sequestrated and the documents were handed to representatives of Grant Thornton, which had been instructed to deal with the matter by the trustees in control of Dennis’s sequestered estate.

During cross-examination, Dennis’s advocate, Jimmy Howse, asked whether Mabuza had left anything in the office after the search and seizure.

Mabuza replied, “I don’t know if I should say this. The thing I left behind was a vibrator.”

The trial continues on Friday.

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The Mercury

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