JOHANNESBURG - Politicsweb can confirm that four more companies fell victim to company hijacking earlier this year. They were Vereeniging Foundaries, Taquanta Asset Managers, Columbia Pharmaceuticals and the Pretoria Ooginstitute.

In all four cases a syndicate went into the Companies and Intellectual Property (CIPRO) database and replaced the legitimate directors with their own nominees.

The intention in at least three of the cases was to divert tax refunds due from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to bank accounts set up by the fraudulent directors in the legitimate company's name. In two cases VAT refunds were paid out, although in one quick action by a bank led to most of the money being recovered.

The companies targeted have yet to have their VAT refunds - whether they were stolen or frozen - reimbursed by SARS.

Last week The Times reported that Sylvester Louw and Mostshidisi Louw had gone to court in order to be reinstated as the directors of their company, Aobakwe Louw Properties. The person fraudulently made a director of this company - one ‘Zakaria Jacob Mcuyu' - was also inserted as a director of Taquanta Asset Managers.

Vereeniging Foundries, Columbia Pharmaceuticals and the Pretoria Ooginstitute have been able to have their legitimate directors reinstated. Taquanta Asset Managers is still in the process of doing so - a matter greatly complicated by the new controls CIPRO implemented ostensibly to stop this kind of fraud.

These recent cases bring the confirmed number of company hijackings (excluding the unrelated Kalahari Resources matters) to a total of eleven. This is however probably the tip of the iceberg. From now on Politicsweb will be maintaining a running list of companies which were targeted (see table below) and updating it as new information comes in.

In early October the SARS anti-corruption unit arrested Itumeleng Malotsa after he had been fraudulently inserted as a director of a number of companies (1 to 5). Investigations into the syndicate or syndicates behind these scams are ongoing.

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