OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 8.20pm
THE Pretoria High Court on Thursday granted a second search and seizure warrant against controversial millionaire Billy Rautenbach.
The warrant will allow the Directorate for Serious Economic Offences investigators use documents it seized from Rautenbach’s Johannesburg mansion in November.
South African officials reportedly seized three truckloads of documents that detail the tangled activities of about 150 companies controlled by Rautenbach, 50 of them registered offshore in the Virgin Islands.
Rautenbach launched a court order to set aside the seizure of the assets. The Pretoria High Court in late November ruled in favour of Rautenbach, and ordered the government to return documents and data on Rautenbach’s companies seized during the raid.
The directorate however kept the document in its possesion by lodging a notice of appeal against the ruling.
Since then the directorate has converted the preparatory investigation into a full criminal inquiry, enabling it to launch a fresh application for a search and seizure warrant.
The court earlier this week granted a final liquidation order against Hyundai Motor Distributor, made by Rautenbach, the company’s sole shareholder and director.