[Neil/Juan’s troubles are only now starting. What if he ends up in jail for fraud? That would be bizarre. I think that is where this little game will end. Jan]

The Crime Expo website has shut down 10 days after being exposed by The Citizen, and hours before a politician pledged to lay charges against its founder.

The website shut down on Tuesday night without warning, but the matter is not closed yet, as Simon Grindrod of the Independent Democrats (ID) will today lay criminal charges against its owner.

The site of Crime Expo South Africa (Cesa) has come under scrutiny after The Citizen exposed the dealings of its founder, a person calling himself Neil Watson.

He has been linked with the controversial founder of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GLA), Juan Uys, which was last year involved in the gay blood donation saga.

On Tuesday the site ceased to exist with the message: œThis account has been suspended.

When The Citizen initially broke the story, the Cesa website carried a story saying œthe Juan Uys character was not involved with the Cesa team, but admitted Uys was involved as a volunteer.

The Citizen
Citizen reporter Werner Swart was himself the subject of personal attacks on the website.

In a media statement issued by the œCesa team after the site was taken off line, it was stated œthe broadcast is halted, but Cesa is not destroyed.

The statement said supporters who wanted to carry on with the Cesa international campaign should contact Watson and appoint a new internet host.

Cesa promised to register as a political party in January 2007, and vowed to take on the ID in the elections.

ID spokesman Simon Grindrod was again attacked, apparently in retaliation for saying he would ask Parliament to probe the website and Watson, after it became clear that Watson was raking in donations without the site having been registered as a Section 21 company.

Grindrod hit back yesterday by saying he would lay an official criminal charge against the website and Watson today at the Caledon Square Police Station.

He found it odd the site had been shut down after being exposed as a scam.

œIts malicious architect has run with the money.

œUnder false pretences he systematically stole money from the public, and attempted to destroy our country™s image at home and overseas, said Grindrod.

Rumours have been rife that Uys and Watson are one and the same person, with Grindrod vowing he would get the authorities involved to investigate this.

œIt is alleged that founder Neil Watson was a fictitious character created by Juan Uys of GLA infamy, he said.

œIf true, this is the same man who threatened to contaminate blood donations with HIV if homosexuals continued to be required to fill in a questionnaire before giving blood.

The Citizen has established there was more than one reason the website was shut down.

This newspaper is in possession of an e-mail from the US-based hosting company SiteGround, in which it said it had taken notice of the offensive and abusive comments on the website, and suspended it due to the abuse.
Part of why the website had become so controversial was the racist posts by some of its contributors. The e-mail from SiteGround said it had given the owner of the website notice until this past Monday (November 20) to remove abusive posts.

œThis includes posts with racist and harassing statements… the owner must also moderate his forum in a way that will prevent any abusive messages to be displayed to the general public, it added.

The only indication that the Cesa œteam, who to date have failed to identify themselves, was about to stop the website was a post on Monday in which they again offered to sell it.

Contrary to what has happened since, the site stated: œThe Cesa hosting contract, database passwords and domain registration will be in the hands of a new owner only if we are 100% sure the international campaign stays on course.

Watson™s Press release was also carried on an SA website Cesa had originally used. Watson claimed he had to move his website out of South Africa as it was being hacked by government agencies.

But the fact he was able to so easily upload his media statement makes this claim questionable.

Watson has also repeatedly claimed to have received death threats.

On Tuesday The Citizen mentioned a rival site to Watson™s, crimexposouthafrica.wordpress. com was carrying many rebuttals of Watson™s claims about there being conspiracies against him.

The creators of this website asked The Citizen to make it clear they had not hacked Watson™s site.

Source: The Citizen
URL: http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?p…/p>