Johannesburg – One of the country's most wanted fugitives, Adriaan Van Vuuren, who was being sought for fraud and corruption involving R500 million allegedly committed suicide on Thursday afternoon.
The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) said Van Vuuren checked in at Centurion Lake Hotel in Pretoria Wednesday night and "was supposed to have checked out at 10:00 this morning".
Captain Ndivhuwo Mulamu said Van Vuuren's body was discovered at noon by the hotel staff members who wanted to clean the room.
"It is suspected that he allegedly suffocated himself with a gas inside the hotel room."
Van Vuuren, former Trudon IT Manager subsidiary to Telkom, allegedly submitted fraudulent claims for IT services required to IT Specialist companies, Bites Bee Holdings and The Corporate Choice owned by his accomplice, Sonya Joubert between 2007 and 2016.
Numerous media articles claimed recently that both Van Vuuren and Joubert fled to New Zealand in an attempt to evade the police. Joubert is still on the run and a magistrates has issued a warrant of arrest for her.