SARS officials could take steps to have alleged crime syndicate kingpin Quinton “Mr Big” Marinus, his wife and his brother declared insolvent after movable assets seized from them fetched less than R100 000 at an auction in Parow.
Together the trio owe the taxman R6.1 million. The most expensive asset, a luxury Jaguar S-Type vehicle, fetched only R59 000 yesterday.
The rest of the items, which included flat-screen television sets, furniture and paintings, together fetched less than the car.
According to SARS spokesman Adrian Lackay, tax officials will now have to consider additional options, including whether to go after the trio’s immovable property or have them declared insolvent.
The assets sold yesterday were seized in March last year after the Goodwood Magistrate’s Court authorised a warrant of execution against the movable property.
According to the warrants, Marinus owed SARS R1.7m, his wife, Davidene, R1.6m and brother Lionel R2.8m.
The goods were seized about a month after Marinus succeeded in a discharge application he brought during his Western Cape High Court trial on multiple charges.
He was acquitted of the charges, which included murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm, corruption, selling liquor illegally, abalone poaching, unlawful possession of firearms, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, theft, attempting to defeat the ends of justice, corruption, racketeering, and drug-related allegations.
Weeks later, Marinus’s wife was also acquitted.
At the start of the trial, Marinus handed in a plea explanation in which he alleged that then-Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool had orchestrated the criminal investigation against him for political reasons.
He alleged that only coloureds were targeted in the campaign launched by Rasool, who promised that big crime syndicate bosses would be locked up.
Marinus also alleged that the investigations against him began when it emerged that he had recorded a song for the Independent Democrats in 2004 at a music studio on his Belhar property, which is known as Little House on the Prairie.
He said he was soon accused of giving large amounts of money to the ID.
Shortly after being acquitted, he demanded that his assets, which had been seized five years earlier, be returned to him.
But he had hardly made his demands when SARS raided his house in Plattekloof.
Officials later moved to the home of his brother, Lionel.
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