The South Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) said on Wednesday that they had no knowledge of the young South African footballer arrested in New Zealand on fraud charges.
Felix Mkwanazi, (23) whom Radio New Zealand described as a professional South African footballer, was arrested along with Liberians Oldba Makor, (30) a refugee, and student Reginald Wilson, for allegedly being in possession of forged US dollar bank notes.
They faced eight charges each, including possessing fake $100 bills, equipment capable of making forged documents and trying to obtain $13 400 by deception, Radio New Zealand reported.
Sarfu spokesperson Gugu Marawa said Mkwanazi did not appear on any lists of South African footballers playing abroad.
”There is no clearance certificate which means that if he is indeed a professional footballer he did not go through the right channels,” she said.
The department of Foreign Affairs is also looking into the case but said they were only expecting to have information on Thursday.
According to the Xinhuanet news service, New Zealand police seized millions of ”very convincing” fake US dollar notes and arrested three African men in Auckland on Tuesday.
The news service said the trio were arrested in an Auckland hotel after a local businessman, who had been negotiating a business transaction with the men, alerted police.
Detective Sergeant Ian Tuke, officer in charge of the Auckland City Police company fraud squad, said that police seized what looked like millions of ”very convincing” fake US dollar notes.
The counterfeit money was found in bundles, sealed in plastic bags, in a large metal suitcase with quality photocopies of US dollar notes on the outside of each bundle.
Two of the men were travelling on Liberian and South African passports and police were investigating how the third man entered the country.
”We believe these men have been in New Zealand for about a month and we’d like to hear from anyone who may have had dealings of any nature with them,” said Tuke.- Sapa