Johannesburg - The Hawks in have confirmed the arrest of the eighth suspect in the theft of R3 billion rand gold scam.
Shunmugam Linga Moodley (66) was arrested by police on Monday and subsequently appeared before the Palmridge Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday, where he was granted R100 000 bail.
This comes after the recent arrest of seven of his co-accused for this theft early this year.
In February, Amabhungane reported that the South African Revenue Service (Sars) conducted a wide-ranging confidential investigation into the second-hand gold industry and found what appeared to be a staggering multibillion-rand tax fraud scheme.
According to media reports, the scheme was one of the country’s largest-scale gold schemes that benefited two companies that claimed R24.4 billion between 2012 and March 2020 in allegedly fraudulent VAT refunds. The details of this scheme were also deposed in an affidavit by Sars in the Johannesburg High Court.
The two companies are said to have scored illegitimate VAT refunds of over R8 billion in 2019 alone — roughly half a percent of Sars' entire tax collection for the year.
According to Captain Lloyd Ramovha of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, it is reported that the accused, comprising of three couples, where the husbands and an individual worked at the chain company, Northern Spark Refinery (Pty) Ltd, Northern Spark Security (Pty) Ltd, and Northern Spark Investment (Pty) Ltd, where Mr Vorster, Mr Marten and Mr Bennideen worked as the finance officers.
"It is re-counted that the above three accused stole and laundered the company’s money worth approximately R3 billion from the corporation’s account into their personal accounts, spouses' accounts and into other company’s accounts that were not in business with Northern Spark (Pty) Ltd from the year 2016 until 2021," Ramovha said in a statement.
Reports also indicate that the company conducted an internal investigation and later opened a case, where the matter was transferred to the Johannesburg-based Hawks' Serious Commercial Crime Investigation in February for further analysis.
Further investigation revealed that the money was stolen, laundered, and shared among the accused for personal enrichment. A warrant of arrest was issued, and the couples were arrested at their residences — Bennideen’s in Randburg, Marten’s in Heidelbergand Vorster’s in Balfour — on Saturday, October 22, 2022. The case has been postponed to January 19, 2023, when the group is expected to appear alongside each other.
The Hawks' Provincial Head, Major General Ebrahim Kadwa, applauded the investigation team for their meticulous investigation in this case. "It is unfortunate that these employees abused their positions for self-enrichment," Kadwa stated.
The Star