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SA: Biggest-ever fraud case edges towards R1bn

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2007-02-28 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: Jan

Nineteen men and women, including the country’s biggest retirement-fund administrator, have appeared before the Special Commercial Crime Court in Johannesburg for the country’s biggest white-collar fraud case.

Alexander Forbes, the giant retirement fund administrator, along with 18 top business executives are accused of siphoning more than R900-million from several retirement funds.

As the case got under way on Monday, advocate Jan D’Oliveira SC, the former director of prosecutions who has been brought out of retirement to try the case, immediately added the names of two more accused. He asked the court to include businessman Roland Bailey and his wife Shirley.

The defendants, including Alexander Forbes, are accused of illegally removing surplus money from nine pension funds. They face 28 counts of fraud and theft.

R1-billion allegedly siphoned off

D’Oliveira told the court a trial date had been set in the High Court to run from October 1 to October 19, but he requested an interim remand until July 4 back to the Commercial Crime Court. The court granted the request.

The final figure of how much was siphoned off could reach R1-billion once Tony Mostert, the curator of the affected pension funds, completes his investigation.

Thirteen of the 19 businessmen and women have already appeared in court on a string of charges, including money-laundering, theft, fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud and theft. They are out on bail.

Those who have appeared in court are Peter Ghavalas; Peter Martin, a former employee of Alexander Forbes; Neil van Hess, the marketing director of an asset management company linked to Alexander Forbes; and Aubrey Wynne-Jones, the chief executive of pension fund administrator Wynne-Jones.

Others are Anthony Dixon-Seagger, a director of Mitchell Cotts and a trustee of the Lucas South Africa Pension Fund; William Somerville, the former chief executive of Lifecare; Gerald Nightingale, who at one time headed Investment Solutions at Alexander Forbes; Anton Roets, a former senior executive and chairman of the Datakor group; Michael McEvoy and Derrick Pettitt, former executives of Datakor; Adrian Bailey, an executive of the Mitchell Cotts Fund; Jan Pickard, a trustee and chief executive of Picbel; and Simon Nash, the owner of Midmacor Industries.

Ghavalas, who is accused number one in the case, is a former executive of Nedcor and owner of Soundprops 178 and believed to be the alleged mastermind. He is accused of pocketing R42-million.

He emigrated to Australia in 1998 but was arrested when he re-entered the country in 2005 and is out on R1-million bail.

The affected funds are the Mitchell Cotts Pension Fund, Lucas SA Pension Fund, Datakor Pension Fund, Datakor Retirement Fund, Coretech Pension Fund, Prestolite Pension Fund, Powerpack Pension Fund, Sable Industries Pension Fund and Picbel-Groep Versorgingsfonds.

This article was originally published on page 2 of The Star on February 27, 2007

Source: Independent Online (IOL)

URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>