The South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the Hawks on Tuesday arrested “another suspect linked to the notorious ‘Bezuidenhout Group’ in their continuing investigation into the illicit gold industry”. Sars said in a statement that the suspect‚ “a well-known Boksburg businessman”‚ will remain in custody until Wednesday when he appears in the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court.Should he not be granted bail‚ he will likely be remanded in custody and appear with his co-accused on October 30.Sars described the “Bezuidenhout group” as “an alleged illicit gold industry syndicate (whose) members were arrested on charges of racketeering‚ money laundering‚ serious tax offences and offences relating to the Precious Metals Act and Second Hand Goods Act”.They allegedly fabricated over 16,000 fraudulent invoices to reflect purchases of second-hand gold jewellery amounting to R442-million.“These fictitious purchases were used in claiming a fraudulent 14% notional VAT input over the period of 2010 to 2012‚ in addition to also understating their sales during the same period‚” said Sarsm which said it had “had suffered an actual prejudice in excess of R50-million due to this scheme”.Tuesday’s arrest‚ Sars added‚ follows two arrests on October 9 “of members of an illicit gold syndicate using the same modus operandi in which Sars was defrauded of over R5 million in VAT”.They were each granted bail of R50,000 in the Nigel Magistrate Court and the matter postponed November 3...