It’s usually easy to find people willing to claim money that’s going begging, but there have been no takers in more than seven months for nearly R6 million which was found in the back of a bakkie near Beaufort West.
The bakkie’s driver and passenger claimed they knew nothing about the cash when police questioned them.
They said an unknown man had told them to drive the bakkie from Joburg to Cape Town.
They didn’t know where to deliver it and had been waiting for a cellphone call with more details when they were pulled over.
This is what was in papers put before the Western Cape High Court this week by the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU), which attached the cash last month and now wants it forfeited to the state.
The unit argued that the way in which the cash was hidden was suspicious, which suggested it was linked to criminal activity.
Asset Investigation Task Team investigator Charmaine van Vuuren said in an affidavit the cash had been found in June last year when two police dog unit members on duty on the N1 stopped the bakkie. One noticed what appeared to be false compartments at the back of the vehicle.
They found R5.99m in cash, wrapped in plastic, hidden in a false compartment.
The driver and his passenger, Simphiwe Ndlela and Mark Wright, were arrested on charges of suspected stolen goods and money laundering.
Ndlela refused to make a statement, but Wright told police he had been instructed by someone, whose name he could not remember, to deliver the vehicle to Cape Town.
The vehicle and petrol money had been handed over to him at Sandton City and he had asked Ndlela to accompany him.
He said he had no knowledge of the cash in the vehicle.
Police also found R30 000 in cash in Wright’s possession.
Further investigation showed the bakkie was registered to an R Buhlmann, of Clover Road, Sandton. But there was no such person at that address.
Van Vuuren
submitted that the transport of the money constituted money laundering and that the bakkie was, therefore an instrument of that offence.
Acting Judge John Riley granted the forfeiture order.
Saturday Argus