BAT spying claims refuse to go away as more players tell their tales

Claims that British American Tobacco (BAT) spied on competitors in South Africa are nothing new.

BAT is going out of its way to avoid answering sensational allegations that it spied on independent tobacco producer Carnilinx.

It faced similar claims by another low-cost cigarette producer, Apollo Tobacco, in 2002.

In 2002, Apollo got a high court order for a raid on the offices of BAT, SARS and a company, Forensic Security Services (FSS), which had been hired by the Tobacco Institute of SA (Tisa) to gather information on the illicit tobacco industry.

At the time, Apollo CEO Hennie Delport contended that BAT had hired a private security company to conduct "industrial espionage" against his business - including illegal surveillance, such as phone tapping.

Delport, contacted this month, said that BAT admitted to the illegal surveillance - but disputed the damages.

Asked about Delport's claims, BAT said it "denies any allegations of wrongdoing or involvement in any illegal activity".

But a whistleblower who worked at FSS, Piet Snyder, told Business Times that he had been ordered to monitor Apollo by his boss, Stephan Botha.

"We did telephone tapping and kept them all under surveillance for the two years I was involved," said Snyder. "They used me for industrial espionage against BAT's rivals."

Business Times is in possession of several tape recordings, allegedly of conversations of BAT competitors who were under surveillance.

This reinforces claims by Mike Peega, a former member of the under-fire SARS covert intelligence unit, who conducted surveillance operations for FSS in Zimbabwe, which has a thriving tobacco market.

Peega claims to have l ed a team that monitored Savannah Tobacco - a cigarette mak er whose CEO, Adam Molai, has links to Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. According to Peega, the surveillance included the illegal use of vehicle trackers to monitor the movement of Savannah's trucks.

FSS CEO Stephen Botha denied Snyder's claims of "spying" on Apollo, but said FSS did conduct legal surveillance in Zimbabwe.

"Under no circumstances will any FSS employee be employed in covert tracking without the authority of a law enforcement body," said Botha.

He said Snyder was fired after it emerged that he was conducting his own, unauthorised covert operation.

Industry body Tisa claims it did not do anything illegal.

Tisa chairman Francois v an der Merwe said: "Tisa represents the legal industry and goes out of its way to make sure it represents a legally compliant, tax-paying industry. "

BAT has not responded to Carnlinx's claims of espionage, and dodged questions from this newspaper, which first published evidence implicating it in spying in March.

This evidence included affidavits, audio and video recordings, copies of financial transactions, and the accounts of five cigarette manufacturers, a state informant, senior sources at SARS and one of BAT's agents.