Paul Kirk A Gauteng attorney has mysteriously vanished with tens of millions of rands he was supposedly helping to spirit out of the country.
Johannesburg-based attorney Spyrodon Akritides is being investigated by police and the South African Reserve Bank on suspicion of having illegally ferreted up to R300-million out of the country, using fraudulent documentation. He is also suspected of having siphoned off about R30-million for himself from the scheme. He is believed to have offered businessmen, mainly from the Greek community, a service in which he could take large amounts of money out of the country on their behalf. This money was allegedly taken out of South Africa in contravention of exchange control regulations. Investigators suspect that Akritides, either alone or with accomplices, obtained legitimate documents from large business concerns showing that they needed foreign exchange in order to pay for imports they had received. This paperwork was duplicated and presented to the Reserve Bank, which allowed Akritides to purchase foreign exchange on the strength of these documents. This foreign exchange could then be deposited into bank accounts held abroad. The Reserve Bank investigator handling the case was not available at the time of going to print, but sources within the bank confirmed that the scheme was a widely used one that frequently worked. Poor border controls make it difficult to ascertain whether goods are actually imported with foreign exchange purchased from the bank. The scheme went sour when Akritides vanished with a large amount of money earlier this month. His last transaction, for about R30- million, was transferred into his own bank account and not that of his client. Captain Sandy Steenkamp of the Cape Town Commercial Crime Unit said: “I can confirm that this man is a suspect. The investigation is still very much at an early stage. I am not sure how much money is involved, nor how many victims.”