The High Court in Pretoria has granted the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Asset Forfeiture Unit a restraint order of over R13 million against the former South African Police Service (SAPS) Crime Intelligence Head, Richard Mdluli, and others.
Mdluli was released from jail on parole earlier this year in July after serving part of his five-year prison sentence for kidnapping, assault, and intimidation. He was sentenced on 29 September 2020.
On Wednesday, the NPA said it had successfully persuaded the court to freeze assets worth more than R13 million belonging to Mdluli, former head of supply chain management, Heine Barnard, former SAPS Crime Intelligence CFO, Solomon Lazarus, and others.
The three of them were custodians and in control of the Crime Intelligence’s secret service account, which consists of funds allocated to Crime Intelligence by the National Treasury for the specific purpose of preventing crime and gathering intelligence to combat crime.
The restraint granted on 1 June 2022 was served on the parties on Tuesday this week.
The other parties in the matter are Mdluli’s former and current wives, Theresa (Lyons) and Vusiwane Mdluli, John and Heena Appalsami (of Daez Trading CC, acting as letting agent), Heine Barnard’s wife, Juanita Barnard and Solomon Lazarus’ wife, Sandra Lazarus.
The restraint is premised on the fraud, theft, and corruption case reinstated by the state on 26 August, 2020.
The matter pertains to charges of gross abuse of the police crime intelligence slush fund, which ultimately benefited Richard Mdluli and his family.
They include payment of private trips to China and Singapore; private use of a witness protection house in Boksburg and conversion of this property for his personal use, the leasing out of Mdluli’s private townhouse at Gordon Villas in Gordons Bay as a safe house to the state and using the monthly rental to pay his bond.
The long list of accusations includes allegations that the intelligence slush fund was used to pay Mdluli’s finance costs owing on his private BMW through an intricate scheme.
SAPS suppliers were allegedly coerced into giving Mdluli a special deal on the use and purchase price of a Honda Ballade.
The slush fund was also allegedly used to pay transfer costs to an attorney on the purchase of a house in Brackenfell, Cape Town.
Allegations are that Mdluli’s family members, without adequate qualifications or experience, were appointed in crime intelligence.
They were allegedly on the payroll and were issued with motor vehicles and cell phones.
The offences are alleged to have been committed between 2008 and 2012.
The Head of the Asset Forfeiture Unit Adv Ouma Rabaji-Rasethaba said: “The NPA has a 2-pronged strategy for prosecuting those responsible for looting state coffers, through criminal prosecution and also by taking away the proceeds of crime through asset forfeiture proceedings.
“We will not allow those who benefited from crime to hold onto the ill-gotten gains and they must feel that crime does not pay.”
The criminal matter returns to court later this year on 5 November 2022.
