The flamboyant socialite and claimed friend of African National Congress leaders is being investigated for `illegal possession’ of unwrought gold worth millions.Stefaans Brmmer reports
PAUL EKON, the flamboyant young millionaire who claims African National Congress leaders as friends, is being investigated by police for his possible involvement in a gold- smuggling racket which a Supreme Court affidavit says lost South Africa a quarter of a billion rands in a single year.
Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi, replying to a question in Parliament from Democratic Party Member of Parliament Douglas Gibson on Wednesday, effectively confirmed Ekon was being investigated for the “illegal possession of unwrought gold” worth R4,8-million.
This was a reference to a raid at Johannesburg International Airport in June last year, when police seized 129kg of gold. Police connected that consignment in a subsequent Rand Supreme Court battle to a syndicate which they said had smuggled more than five tons of gold to Europe and Britain in the preceding year.
The total value of the 49 consignments which police documented in an affidavit was about US$52-million – more than R240-million at current value.
The affidavit was part of Mufamadi’s defence, as Minister of Safety and Security, against Deon Kruger, pilot of the aircraft on which the gold was found. Kruger sued Mufamadi and the police for the return of the gold, but his case failed and he turned state witness.
Speaking from London this week Ekon (37), denied his involvement, saying he found the charge “unbelievable”and that Mufamadi “has a lot to answer for now”.
Ekon’s links to leaders in the ANC first became apparent in August when axed deputy minister Bantu Holomisa dragged him into his war of words with the party. Holomisa claimed casino magnate Sol Kerzner had funded Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s 50th birthday party in 1992, and that Ekon had been the “middleman”.
But Ekon, at whose Houghton, Johannesburg mansion the party was held, claimed in response that he, clothing industrialist Charles Priebatsch and “ANC tailor” Yusuf Surtee – both also close to ANC leaders – had solely funded the bash. Mbeki later confirmed this version, saying it had been a surprise party and that he had not been involved in the arrangements.
The Mail & Guardian has established that Ekon had extensive contact with top ANC leaders after the organisation was unbanned in 1990, and that this continued at least until he resettled in London in late 1994 or early 1995. The latest known contact was when Ekon was a guest at a function in honour of President Nelson Mandela during his state visit to London in July this year.
Earlier social contacts included Ekon’s presence as a prominent guest at late ANC leader Oliver Tambo’s funeral, his attendance at a cocktail party for singer Paul Simon hosted by Mandela, and Mandela’s attendance at Ekon’s wedding about three years ago.
Insiders say he acted as a “fixer” for the ANC’s Department of International Affairs, which Mbeki headed before the elections, and probably for other ANC departments. Said one: “If they wanted to go to Zambia tonight, he’d organise it, because he had the contacts.”
Among other favours before the elections, Ekon is also known to have provided cellular phones to ANC officials in the party’s Shell House headquarters, and to have handed out handguns to a number of them. The gift of guns, according to one former acquaintance of Ekon’s, brought him into conflict with Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa, then head of the ANC legal department in Shell House. Phosa would not take a gun.
Ekon was involved in an attempt to set up a Swedish-backed television station in South Africa – in which Dali Tambo, son of Oliver Tambo, would have played a leading role – and other failed foreign-backed “black empowerment”deals. Ekon has said that the Women’s Development Bank, headed at the time by Mbeki’s wife, Zanele, would have been a partner in one of these – the importation of a factory to produce cheap houses – while others would have empowered former ANC political prisoners.
A partner in one of these deals said Ekon did not hesitate to try and use his political contacts: “He’d take us to Shell House, and he just entered like it was his house … He’d walk into any office – Cyril Ramaphosa or anybody at any level.”
Ekon also played a role in trying to bring the ANC together with Kerzner, who may still face charges for his alleged gambling rights bribery in the former Transkei.
Ekon tried in about 1992 to set up a meeting between Kerzner and Holomisa, then still military leader of the Transkei. Holomisa has confirmed Ekon’s attempt to set up a meeting, but told M&G he refused to meet him – suggesting instead that Kerzner send his lawyers to the attorney general in Umtata.
This course was later also recommended to Kerzner by Mandela and Mbeki at a meeting before the 1994 elections. Holomisa has claimed that Kerzner, who contributed to a R2-million election donation to the ANC at the time, had wanted the ANC to prevent his prosecution.
Holomisa has told M&G that Ekon himself has boasted to have “financially helped the organisation”. Ekon earlier told M&G he could not understand the acrimony between Holomisa and Mbeki over the Kerzner affair: “Sol, Holomisa and Thabo are all good buddies of mine … I tried to broker something … I told Holomisa, `Don’t hound the guy [Kerzner], he’s your biggest source of income.'”
To what extent Kerzner and Ekon are still friends is not clear. Ekon dated Kerzner’s ex-wife Anneline Kriel in the early 1990s, which is said to have angered Kerzner.
Apart from his contacts with Mandela and Mbeki, Ekon is said to have “socialised” with ANC national chairman Jacob Zuma and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. But how much influence he had is a matter for debate. A former Shell House employee said the ANC was dependent on benefactors in the pre-election period. “He wasn’t really their friend. He was like a groupie. He gave people things.”
Said Mandela’s spokesman Parks Mankahlana: “It is very difficult for anyone who’s in a position of responsibility to chase people away from them … Many people come to them and they have to listen to them, rich or poor, dubious or straightforward.”
He said neither Mandela nor Mbeki would “chase [anyone] away from them” until they had been proved to be involved in untoward activities.
Outside his political contacts, Ekon had a strange mixture of friends and associates. He was friends with the likes of later convicted fraudster Greg Blank, with Liberty Life chief Donny Gordon’s son Jeremy Gordon, and with Clive Beck, son of multi- millionaire Graham Beck. His lawyers include Ishmail Ayob, who is a friend of top ANC leaders, and Kobus du Plessis of law firm David H Botha, Du Plessis & Kruger, which is perhaps best known for its legal work for former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) operatives.
When Mpumalanga farmer Willie Lotter appeared in court in September on charges relating to the same June 1995 gold raid, he was represented by Du Plessis and Klaus von Lieres, the former Witwatersrand attorney- general who represented some of the accused in the recent Malan trial shortly after taking early retirement for “ill-health”.
Ekon has acknowledged to M&G that he is a friend of Lotter’s, who M&G understands to have done undercover work for the previous government. At his September court appearance, charges were provisionally withdrawn against Lotter – pending a court case in Switzerland, from where police are trying to obtain sensitive documentation. (Mufamadi said in his parliamentary answer on Wednesday that the investigation against Ekon depended on Swiss documentation.)
Acquaintances of Ekon have also confirmed that his path has crossed with convicted murderer and former CCB agent Ferdi Barnard and Barnard’s one-time friend, military intelligence agent Eugene Reilly, who died under mysterious circumstances after he allegedly warned of Chris Hani’s impending assassination.
Their names have both been mentioned in connection with a shooting incident at Ekon’s house in about 1992 which police connected at the time to a number of attacks on members of the Transvaal horseracing fraternity, in which Ekon was active. Ekon has acknowledged peripheral contact with Reilly, but denied contact with Barnard.