Former Bosasa chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi will apply for leave to appeal against a Gauteng High Court order compelling him to pay the state R1.66 billion linked to corruption involving the company’s government contracts.
Agrizzi said the amount represented the value of contracts the department of correctional services (DCS) awarded to Bosasa rather than money he personally received.
In a statement responding to the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) announcement on 2 November, Agrizzi said his appeal would focus on the calculation of the confiscation order, not his criminal conviction.
“I do not dispute my conviction. I pleaded guilty and I gave evidence before the Zondo Commission. The appeal concerns one question: how much money I actually received,” he said.
On 29 October, Judge Mosopa of the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ordered Agrizzi to pay R1 666 582 825.73, with interest calculated from the date of judgment until final payment. He was also ordered to pay the costs of the proceedings, including the costs of two counsel.
The order followed a confiscation application the NPA brought under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, which allows the state to recover benefits derived from unlawful activities.
The court found that Agrizzi had benefited from Bosasa’s corrupt activities and that the state’s application had succeeded. It rejected his argument that he could not be held responsible for the wider proceeds of the company’s criminal activities.
The NPA argued that Bosasa and its subsidiaries had operated as corporate vehicles to secure government contracts through the bribery of public officials, with Agrizzi participating in the enterprise as its chief operating officer.
According to the judgment, the state put the value of the illegal activities linked to Agrizzi at R1.66bn. It also placed the known value of his criminal activities, based largely on his admissions and evidence before the Zondo Commission, at R7.118 million.
Agrizzi, however, disputes the calculation and argues that the confiscation order exceeds the value of the benefits he personally derived.
He said the state’s own heads of argument described the R1.66bn as the value of contracts the DCS awarded to Bosasa.
“I was Bosasa’s chief operating officer, an employee. I was never a director or a shareholder of Bosasa. The contract payments were made to the company, not to me,” he said.
The confiscation proceedings are separate from Agrizzi’s criminal case, in which he entered into a plea and sentence agreement with the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption in November 2025.
Agrizzi pleaded guilty to three counts of corruption and one count of money laundering relating to his role in Bosasa’s corruption of former senior correctional services officials Linda Mti and Patrick Gillingham, as well as former ANC MP Vincent Smith.
He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment on each of the four counts, with the sentences wholly suspended for five years on conditions that included continued cooperation with investigators and providing evidence in prosecutions linked to Bosasa.
Agrizzi said he had continued to provide information to investigators and had repeatedly raised concerns about delays in pursuing other people implicated in the commission’s findings.
He alleged that evidence he had prepared and handed to investigators had been damaged. He questioned why several politically connected individuals identified by the commission had not been prosecuted.
“To my knowledge, other former Bosasa executives implicated in the commission’s findings remain employed by the companies that took over Bosasa’s operations,” he said.
He argued that he had become the principal target of financial recovery efforts despite his cooperation with the state.
“I support the recovery of the proceeds of crime. I ask only that a confiscation order reflect what I actually received, as the law requires,” he said.