Businessman jailed for defrauding maize farmers of R18m

Free State maize farmers were defrauded of millions. Picture: File

Free State maize farmers were defrauded of millions. Picture: File

Published Nov 24, 2022

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Cape Town – The Bloemfontein High Court has sentenced a 51-year-old man to eight years in prison.

Prinsloo Phillippus Pretorius and his company Eco Grain CC made several appearances before the court.

He faced charges of fraud and contravention of the Close Corporation Act of 1984.

According to the spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) in the Free State, Captain Christopher Singo, the crimes took place from October 2019 to January 2020.

Prinsloo Phillippus Pretorius, 51, was sentenced to direct imprisonment. Picture: Hawks

“The victims sold maize to Pretorius who would then load the maize from the victims’ farms and sell it to the silos: GWK Aliwal and Senwes Bloemfontein.

“The agreement was that after he sold the maize he would then pay the victims their money.

“A total of ‪‪4057.235‬ tons was received by the accused and his company from the victims in Bultfontein but the victims did not receive their money as agreed,” Singo said.

He said the victims made enquiries at the entities where the maize was supposedly delivered.

“They discovered that some of the maize was delivered under the accused's name as well as other entities unknown to the victims. As a result of these fraudulent activities, the victims were prejudiced and suffered a total loss of more than R18 million,” Singo said.

The matter was reported to and investigated by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team based in Bloemfontein.

Pretorius was arrested on February 8, 2021.