PPE and commercial crimes take precedence on list of serious cases

Thirty-one people have been convicted for PPE and Covid-19 relief fraud.

This is according to Hawks head Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya, who said 143 people have appeared in various courts on 45 cases.

Of those, 33 cases have been finalised with 31 convictions and two acquittals.

“When Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, the government provided some financial relief to cushion the impact. Some greedy criminals developed some means to steal these funds. The anti-corruption task team, which also sits as the operational committee ... assigned the Fusion centre in the Financial Intelligence centre to co-ordinate the fight against the looters. The DPCI forms part of this process.”

Lebeya gave a list of the top 45 cases the organisation had dealt with since 2018, which included PPE and Covid-19 fraud and serious commercial crime investigations.

Here are examples of cases the Hawks are prioritising:

Case 17: Five suspects arrested for Covid-19 UIF fraud

On July 4 2020, five suspects were arrested for 58 counts of fraud, theft and money laundering of R5.6m from the Unemployment Insurance Fund Covid-19 temporary employment relief scheme.

The accused were found guilty and sentenced on May 17.

Case 18: Malamulele couple arrested for relief funds

Between April and August 2020, the director of Mtititi Drop-in Centre allegedly claimed R3.2m Covid-19 social relief funds from the UIF on behalf of her 242 former Malamulele-based extended public works programme workers. But the workers’ contracts had been terminated before the country’s lockdown was declared. The claimed funds never reached the pockets of the former employees.

Director Dorris Mashimbye and her husband William Khosa were arrested. The case is remanded to November 3 2022 for plea.

The Hawks also conducted a number of serious commercial crime investigations.

In the financial years 2019 to 2022, 1,655 suspects were arrested and 605 convicted.

Below are the top cases:

Case 19: R86m of customs and excise conduct 

On September 11 2018 a suspect travelling from SA to Hong Kong was caught by customs officials at OR Tambo International Airport carrying a sports bag containing R86.9m in cash. She had already boarded the flight when she was arrested and removed by Sars officials.

The accused faced a fine of R200,000 or 24 months’ imprisonment and further 24 months’ imprisonment suspended for three years conditionally.

Case 20: Trade Venture Investments Ponzi scheme

Msawenkosi Gazu and Fakazile Mazibuko were arrested in 2014 and were found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme under the name of Trade for Life. They would accept deposits from the public acting as a bank. Once the monies were no longer being generated, they changed the company to TVI (Trade Venture Investments) and continued accepting deposits from the public. There were 6,024 such deposits with an estimated value of R64m. Most investors lost all their investments.

They were convicted in February 2019 on all 6,024 counts and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment and an additional 15-years to run concurrently on all other counts.

Case 21: Land Bank fraud

A grant of R6m was paid to an entity on the verbal instruction of the CEO of Land Bank, and the correct procedures were not followed in approving this grant. Three former Land Bank employees, CEO Philemon Mohlahlane, former MP Ruben Mohlaloga and Dinga Nkhwashu, were arrested in October 2012. They were looking to defraud the Agri-BEE Fund/Land Bank government project of R6m. The BEE agriculture project was meant to benefit emerging farmers and assist previously disadvantaged farmers‚ women and youth in agriculture to acquire land and to establish farming enterprises.

All three were found guilty and sentenced on February 14 2019. Mohlahlane was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, Mohlaloga to 20 years and Nkhwashu 24 years.

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