Three Malagasy citizens were apprehended at OR Tambo International airport, but now the trail is found to connect to France and Mali.
(Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Crack investigation teams in both Madagascar and South Africa are trying to unravel the mystery behind at least one attempt to smuggle gold from the island to South Africa.
The three men from Madagascar, who were arrested last year, will be appearing at the Kempton Park magistrate’s court on Monday next week for a bail application.
The investigation into the bold attempt to allegedly smuggle a suitcase full of gold bars through the OR Tambo airport has revealed a messy network, tying in Dubai, Mali, Singapore and a dodgy French passport.
The consignment is rumoured to be part of an intricate smuggling network using South Africa as a transit route before the gold is dispatched to Dubai or Singapore — with or without the knowledge or possible involvement of the Malagasy government.
The arrests followed after three Malagasy citizens, of whom one also had a French passport, brazenly walked through customs at Fireblade Aviation, the Oppenheimer family’s luxury business terminal at OR Tambo Airport, with the gold bars in wheelie-suitcases on 31 December last year.
Custom officials spotted the gold when the cases went through the scanners and notified the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Hawks and then Interpol.
The three passengers on the chartered flight produced customs documents showing the gold’s origins as Mali.
According to Malagasy sources, the Malian export documents, issued by the customs office at Bamako-Senou airport in Mali, indicated that the export was for motor-vehicle spare parts only.
STA Aviation (Services et Transports Aériens), which chartered the aircraft to South Africa, presented an “altered” Malian document, to which the gold was added.
The Malagasy government has requested the extradition of both the three men arrested and the gold.
According to the newspaper L’Express de Madagascar, Liva Tehindrazanarivelo, Madagascar’s minister of foreign affairs, has handed in the extradition application at the South African embassy in Antananarivo, and the Madagascar embassy in Pretoria is handling the negotiations with the South African authorities.
The embassy did not respond to a written inquiry about the investigation and of the extradition request.
The Piper Cheyenne aircraft on which the three suspects travelled, and its crew, were allowed to leave shortly after the three men were arrested. Despite the flight plan indicating that the flight was supposed to continue to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and then onwards to Dubai, it made its way back to Madagascar.
The crew and several senior managers of STA Aviation were arrested by members of the anti-corruption unit leading the investigation shortly after they arrived in Antananarivo.
During a press conference shortly after the arrests in South Africa, the Malagasy government indicated eight people were subsequently arrested in Madagascar, with another two arrested later. The people arrested included members of Madagascar’s civil aviation authority, customs, air and border police, and the gendarmerie, a specialised unit in the police dealing with border offences.
According to the minutes of the Malagasy Council of Ministers’ meeting released shortly after the three men’s arrest, the government wants to “prosecute and punish those who try to intervene or prevent extradition procedures” and says that “everything will be done to repatriate the gold to the Central Bank”.
Ernest Zafivanona Lainkana, the director-general of the country’s customs authority, referred to the men’s Malian gold-export documentation and said the documents were “false”. Those arrested are being held under a committal order in Tsiafahy prison, a facility reserved for serious criminals. They would be prosecuted for “customs offences, mining offences, forgery and counterfeiting, active and passive corruption, and clandestine export of gold”, the government said in a statement.
No customs officials were apparently present to clear the flight when it left from the Ivato airport in Antananarivo on a domestic flight to Toliara, about 930km southwest of the capital. The flight plan to fly to South Africa was filed only from Toliara.
A customs official then checked the luggage, but none of the suitcases was heavier than the allowed 23kg.
According to aviation sources, who did not want to be named because the case is considered very sensitive, this particular aircraft, with the registration 5R-ASB, has not been spotted in South Africa before. However, two planes from a different charter company in Madagascar arrived in South Africa in late October and on 7 November last year. Both followed the same route: Antananarivo-Toliara-OR Tambo.
Toliara is not an international airport and, unless a plane is cleared for an international flight in Antananarivo, it would constitute an illegal flight.
Artisanal gold mining and the illicit trade in gold by traffickers from the island have long been sources of income for some locals, who otherwise have limited means of earning a living. Locals sift the gravel and silt from the rivers for little grains of mesothermal lodes of gold. This is then melted down and sold to gold traders.
The gold carries a distinct geological identity, which distinguishes it from gold from a different country. It is understood that the gold confiscated in South Africa is currently being analysed to determine its true origins, especially in light of the Malian customs document.
Sources in the illicit mining industry, who wanted to remain anonymous because they were not closely linked to this case, told the Mail & Guardian that it is quite possible that the gold bars were supposed to be melted down and mixed with local gold in South Africa in an attempt to obscure its identity. Local traders might then indicate the source as being from gold jewellery they purchased and melted down.
The gold is then exported and, with the foreign gold melted in, it is “legalised”.
The three men, of 46, 35 and 67 years old, have been charged with dealing in precious metals and contravening the Customs and Excise Act. Their passports indicate that the men are not related. They appeared in the Kempton Park magistrate’s court on 12 January, where the case was postponed for further investigation until 1 February.
The 67-year-old produced a French passport, as well as a Malagasy passport, both of which the M&G has seen. Colonel Athlenda Mathe, an SAPS spokesperson, confirmed the French passport might be fake. At least one of the men allegedly indicated that he was unemployed and undertook the flight to act as a mule for some of the gold.
“While investigations continue to determine the origin and ownership of the gold as well as where the gold was destined for, the DPCI [Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, the Hawks], through Interpol, is in contact with authorities in the affected countries. We won’t be commenting any further on this matter as investigations are at a crucial stage,” Mathe said.
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