A man suspected of being the middleman in the Transnet, Regiments Capital and Trillion corruption saga, is expected to appear at the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
The suspect was arrested at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park on Tuesday night. Trillion is linked to the Gupta family and Transnet paid them millions of rands for consultancy services.
The suspect is also linked to thefts by Regiments Fund Managers from the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund. The National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigating Directorate, Sindisiwe Seboka, says the members of the police apprehended him while he was boarding a flight to Dubai.
“The arrest emanates from money laundering of the proceeds from contracts that were improperly awarded by Transnet to Regiments Capital and Trillian. The suspect was apprehended before boarding an international flight to Dubai at 7pm this evening (Tuesday). He is expected to appear at the Palm Ridge Specialised Crimes Court.”
Zondo hears how Guptas used complicated network system to launder money
In June, the director of investigations at London-based Shadow World Investigations, Paul Holden, explained to the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture how the Guptas used a complicated and broad network system to launder stolen money.
The global organisation investigates cases of grand corruption and corporate malfeasance.
Holden testified that money that was received through corrupt contracts would go through several local and international shell companies.
He says their investigations show that the funds would then flow to some sort of endpoint offshore with most of the money ending up in Hong Kong and China.
Holden says the laundering system they used was complicated but had a pattern.
“Combined private investigations is a firm we have identified in the report as receiving quite a large amount of state contracts from different sources providing amongst other things security services. And it made quite substantial payments to first-level laundry network.”
“And that’s R1.75 million and it made that payment to Mejul. Mejul then transfers R1 554 245.16 to an entity called Sammid Bullion Group. The Sammid Bullion Group is what I call the spider web,” says Holden.
