2010 Fifa World Cup fraud case set for pre-trial

The Durban High Court has postponed the case against nine suspects facing charges relating to R47 million Soccer World Cup fraud and corruption charges, to 25 July for pre-trial conferencing.

The accused, including former KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner general Mmamonnye Ngobeni; Colonel Navin Madhoe, former police captain Aswin Narainpershad and Durban businessman Toshan Panday face 275 counts of racketeering offences and fraud, corruption, money laundering and forgery allegedly committed between March 2009 and April 2010.

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During this time the prescripts of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) were allegedly ignored in procuring accommodation for members of the South African Police Service (Saps) during the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

The other accused are Panday’s mother, Arevenda Panday; his wife, Privisha Panday; his sister, Kajal Ishwarkumar; Panday’s brother-in-law, Seveesh Maharaj Ishwarkumar and Toshan Panday’s personal assistant, Tasleem Rahiman.

Lucrative contracts, irregular tenders

“The state alleges Panday’s family of being party to a common purpose with Toshan and others to defraud Saps, through their association with entities which were used to score lucrative contracts from Saps,” explained NPA spokesperson Henry Mamothame.

“The policemen who are accused in this matter face accusations of colluding with Panday to receive contracts from the KZN police for an amount of over R47.3 million in fraudulent and irregular tender procedures.”

The five entities related and/or controlled by Panday were paid the total of R47 346 597.52 by the police.

These companies include:

• Goldcoast – R39 336 283
• Valotone – R3 515 704,
• Bravosat – R2 079 469,
• Kaseev Traders – R1 552 019, and
• Unite Mzansi – R863 122.

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Judgment on an application for disclosure of certain information is still reserved for a date that will be provided by the court.

“The state has strongly argued against this application,” Mamothame added.

Goldcoast struggling before 2010 deal

In 2019, the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture heard how Goldcoast Trading CC had been struggling to stay afloat.

“The activity between January 2009 to October 2009 shows that Goldcoast Trading was actually struggling financially with several cheques returned unpaid or deliberately cancelled.

“However, from the first payment received from the SA Police Service [Saps] on 20 November 2009, the financial woes of Gold Coast Trading came to an abrupt end,” former head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, Major-General Johan Booysen, said, quoting from a police report at the commission.

It took less than five months from that first payday for the bean counters to smell a rat.

The then-head of finance for the Saps in KZN was reconciling the 2010 budget when he discovered what the state had since described as the “astronomical” travel expenditure that was suddenly being incurred – and allegedly Goldcoast was behind it all.

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