OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH African authorities have seized about R40m worth of assets, including a jet and helicopter, belonging to Zimbabwean billionaire Billy Rautenbach, a former boss of Hyundai Motor Distributors.
A court order granted the seizure after on the basis of an 18-month investigation which allegedly links Rautenbach to customs fraud amounting to R60m.
Rautenbach, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur with mining interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had a 50% interest in Hyundai’s operations in South Africa and Botswana.
Hyundai Motor Distributors and other companies in Rautenbach’s Wheels of Africa group went into liquidation earlier this year after creditors claimed the group was in severe financial straits.
A private jet, helicopter, a house and six flats in Johannesburg, a wine farm in the Western Cape and another farm in KwaZulu-Natal were among the assets seized, head of the police’s Assets Forfeiture Unit Willie Hofmeyr said.
Hofmeyr said Rautenbach, who is not in South Africa, faced charges relating to undervaluing by 20 to 30% Hyundai vehicles imported to South Africa from Botswana, where they were assembled.
This allegedly defrauded the South African Revenue Services of customs duties worth R60m.
Other charges would relate to the irregular payment of millions in cash to a business partner and close family, Hofmeyr said.
Three truckloads of Rautenbach’s papers and computer data were siezed in a raid November last year by government’s Investigative Directorate for Serious Economic Offences and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) amid investigations into tax fraud, cross-border arms smuggling and other fraudulent activities.
Rautenbach objected to the raid, saying it infringed his constitutional right to privacy but the Constitutional Court ruled last month that the raid had been justified and was legal.