By Carine Hartman and Michael Schmidt
The manhunt for internationally wanted fugitive Jean Claude LaCote, a South African-based reality TV producer sought in connection with murder and fraud totalling millions of rands, is finally over.
Aside from two extradition orders from Belgium against the 39-year-old French-born Canadian, high-powered Irish businessman Noel Hanley finally tracked down the man he claims swindled him out of more than R10-million for a double-storey mansion in Johannesburg. Hanley is making the allegations as part of a civil court case being brought against Absa, one of the largest banks in South Africa.
Belgian authorities have also been trying in vain to extradite high-flying LaCote. He faces criminal charges, firstly for the 1996 gang-style murder in that country of British engineer Marcus Mitchell, of Dorking, near London, whom LaCote admitted owed him l500 000, and secondly for allegedly defrauding six French businessmen "of millions of euros", authorities claim.
But a hunt that crossed three continents over the past six years finally ended amid high drama on Wednesday when a private investigator tracked LaCote down to a plush mansion in the quiet Johannesburg suburb of Observatory.
It was there, at the seven-bedroomed house he shares with girlfriend Hilda van Acker, that the flamboyant LaCote, who previously was held for four months in a Belgian jail in connection with the Mitchell murder, personally signed two sheriff's summonses for the Hanley hearing.
Said private investigator Marius Booysen, who accompanied the sheriff: "We've been trying for years to personally serve LaCote, whose cronies just always deny he's living at any given address, and we had to do it before the civil case lapses on July 14."
Hanley on Friday told the Saturday Star he was "elated" the elusive LaCote had been served: "I have been looking for him for more than three years now - and the South African authorities helped nothing, although I have begged the police, South Africa's Interpol and the Scorpions to get involved. I had to employ a private investigator, who tracked LaCote down in six short months."
LaCote, best known in SA as the executive editor of the reality TV crime series Duty Calls (screened on M-Net in 2000), has been on the run since his high-profile release in 1999 for lack of evidence in the Mitchell murder.
He reportedly fled to Brazil, leaving his Learjet behind, but when Belgian police unearthed further evidence in relation to the murder, Brazil declined to hand him over, saying the evidence against him was insufficient. Ever since LaCote arrived in this country, the Belgians have tried unsuccessfully to have him extradited.
When LaCote arrived here in 1999 to begin work on Duty Calls, he had already struck an agreement-in-principle with SAPS chief communications director Assistant Commissioner Jacob Ngobeni that the police would give whatever logistical assistance they could in the filming.
When LaCote was red-flagged by a customs officer on arrival at the Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria as a suspect sought by Interpol, the officer immediately phoned the agency's head, Director Reg Taylor.
But at the time Interpol was apparently unclear about the status of the charges against LaCote and Taylor merely instructed Superintendent Marianne Botha - tasked by Ngobeni with meeting LaCote and liaising with his film crew - to keep an eye on the man.
Duty Calls director Cedric Sundström told the Saturday Star LaCote was a "very charismatic high-flyer" and that when rumours of the charges pending against him began to circulate during filming of the series, "he told me that it was a case of mistaken identity, and I believed him because, after all, he wasn't in hiding: he was holding press conferences, conducting interviews and working with the police".
LaCote, who initially settled in Lonehill, dropped out of the public eye three years ago, after the series was sold to the Reality TV channel in Europe. Police who had worked with him expressed surprise this week that he was still in the country.
His double-storey Sir Herbert Baker-designed hideout at 15 Judith Street, Observatory is currently on the market for R13-million.
It includes a personal gym, state-of-the-art security and eight garages to house his three Ferraris and a luxury German car. He runs his "financial advisory consultancy" from the 3 000m² property he bought less than three years ago in November 2003 for R2,1-million.
LaCote allegedly used one of his many aliases, Roger Wilcox, during the alleged Hanley sting in 2003. During work on Duty Calls, he went by the name John LaCote.
Hanley, a Dublin shipping magnate and founder of the Irish airline Euroceltic Airways that collapsed that same year, intended to use €2-million to fund the acquisition of four used Fokker F-50 airplanes to save his ailing airline.
"Roger Wilcox" orchestrated this transfer from SA. But when Hanley tried to access the €2-million to pay for the aircraft, he discovered his Absa bank account had been emptied.
A high-ranking Absa official, whose name is known to the Saturday Star, was involved in the transaction, but left the bank immediately after the scandal broke in 2000.
LaCote and one of his many "companies", CPCorpCan, is being sued, with Absa Bank the third defendant, based on the allegation that the bank did not do enough to prevent Hanley's money being transferred from his account.
Hanley's case, due in the High Court in Pretoria early next year, will argue his bank did not have the correct checks in place to protect his money.
Hanley's case is one of the seven fraud cases against LaCote. The latest extradition request from Brussels, in April, is built around six known cases of French businessmen who claim they had been been swindled out of millions of euros by LaCote, who in 2000 admitted he appeared in courts in France and England for "tax issues arising from his father's Swiss gold export business" and not, as was then claimed, for defrauding numerous other businessmen there.
A frustrated Hubert van Outryve, the investigating officer of the Belgian Ministry of the Home Office, confirmed Belgium's two extradition requests but claimed "we had little co-operation from the South African authorities".
"We've had no response from South Africa on the latest request up to date," he said.
The first extradition request for LaCote to stand trial for the Mitchell murder was lodged with the Department of Justice in 1999 and LaCote defended it in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court, "and six years later that order is still open".
Even the most complicated extraditions are finalised within six months.
"We've only heard from LaCote's advocate, Marius van Huysteen, who demanded certain conditions, which the Belgian authorities refused," said Van Outryve.
"We'll have to investigate these claims," was the only comment from Lesley Mashokwe, a senior spokesperson for Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Brigitte Mabandla.
SA's elite crime-busting unit, the Scorpions, have been equally uninterested. All documentation was handed over to them in February this year but they would only admit to "receiving a query and we didn't act on it. We've got bigger fish to fry," a source close to them said. SA Interpol has also been approached without any results.
And a request for help to the police's Commercial Crimes Unit in Johannesburg from the International Police Liaison Office at the South African High Commission in London in August 2003, also seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Tummi Golding, spokesperson for National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, who is current head of Interpol, said: "The matter of LaCote's extradition has been postponed until October and it will be heard at the Pretoria Magistrate's Court then. We know he applied for voluntary extradition, but it was refused by the Belgian authorities."
She would not comment on allegations of the police's "disinterest".
LaCote did not respond to calls for comment this week.
- Swiss authorities in 2000 investigated a R3-million aircraft deal involving LaCote and Pierre Chevalier, his Belgian lawyer and later junior government minister, who helped secure LaCote's release from a Belgian prison on a charge of murdering British engineer Marcus Mitchell. Chevalier, nowadays Special Envoy of the Belgian Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Chairmanship, resigned his government post in October 2000 after his connection to LaCote explosively emerged in the press. He was cleared of all wrongdoing in the affair in 2002.
- The Mitchell murder charge against LaCote was a conspiracy to discredit him, ahead of a R3-million lawsuit against M-Net after it canned the Duty Calls series, his lawyer, Marius van Huysteen, claimed in 2000. The broadcaster denied it had ever employed LaCote and said he had been engaged on a limited contractual basis.
- LaCote's company, Canadian Publicadvise Corporation, which entered into an agreement with M-Net for the fly-on-the-wall TV series, had been abandoned and inactive since it was formed in 1998, Canadian authorities discovered in 2000. LaCote's former business partner, Paul van Acker, confirmed this.
- Other companies linked to LaCote include Everlasting Diamonds, J-C LaCote Productions, CPCorpCan and Crystal Rock Investments,a South African company for "real estate activities", formed in 2001 and registered at an address in the small Free State town of Vryheid.
- Lacote uses the aliases of Roger Wilcox and Roger Baudry, intelligence sources claim. Other aliases reported in 2000 included Errol Little and Reginald Little. His nicknames include Light, Smokey and Eye.
- His known associates include a white male with a strong South African accent, known as "Chris Peters" and a tall, blonde female known only as "Christine", according to intelligence sources.
- Belgian authorities said LaCote's claimed overseas properties, including a castle in Scotland, were all "air castles". They are only looking for a few properties in SA, they claim.
His claimed fleet of "eleven" Ferraris has also dwindled to just three, according to them.
- The Canadian Department of National Defence has no record of LaCote - either there or in France - despite his claims to have military experience . Nor does he have a doctorate in political economics, as he had reportedly claimed in 2000.
- That same year the Canadian authorities discovered that, according to records there, LaCote was declared dead in 1995.In various interviews in the South African media in 2000 LaCote:
- Bragged about owning 11 Ferraris, a Learjet and property in London, the US, Canada and SA.
- Denied killing Marcus Mitchell, who was executed while apparently "begging for his life on his knees". "This guy owed me e500 000. In my country they have a saying that you 'Don't kill your banker', so why would I kill the guy who owed me the money?"
- Claimed the murder charge was motivated by a Belgian investigator's "personal vendetta" against him.
- Denied allegations he had a criminal record in Canada. Charges drawn up against him since September 7 1984, included robbery, weapons possession, breaking and entering, theft of a motor vehicle, drug charges, fraud, contempt of court and numerous driving offences, it was reported.
- Said that he trained as a commando during two years' military service in France.
- Had the trust of the SA police while making Duty Calls. "I spent two years in the commandos. I know how these guys feel. We talk the same language." He was known as "Boykie" by local police.
- Claimed he "risked his life" during filming Duty Calls, "so I have earned all my toys". And claimed he spent $75 000 (about R450 000) to make each 22-minute episode.
- Said personal risk didn't faze him, although he "lost four crew members" while filming in the US. "If it (death) has to happen, I'll have fun first."
- Said he donated 10 percent of the proceeds from the TV series to buy equipment for the police, including cars for the old Narcotics Bureau.
- Claimed he had a PhD in political economics and read Balzac and philosophy.
- Claimed he cared for 27 cats on his "home closest to his heart", an alleged estate in Scotland.