BLF happy wealth was ‘repossessed’ from Johann Rupert in warehouse robbery

In a mocking and sarcastic statement on Sunday, deregistered political party Black First, Land First (BLF) took a pot shot at billionaire Johann Rupert, one of their greatest longtime political targets.

The party rubbed salt into the businessman’s wounds after one of his companies fell victim to a robbery on Friday night.

The Sunday Times reported that a subsidiary company owned by Rupert was hit by jewellery thieves, with an estimated R300 million worth of watches, diamond necklaces and earrings snatched at a warehouse in Rivonia. The thieves allegedly overpowered and tied up the security guards before breaking into the vault.

The stolen luxury goods were reportedly headed for shops in Sandton under the distribution arm of the Rupert family’s luxury goods company Richemont, which owns Cartier and Montblanc, among other brands.

Specialist investigators are understood to be looking into why the CCTV cameras didn’t seem to be working and how the guards could have proven so ineffective.

The BLF’s deputy president Zanele Lwana said their “revolutionary movement” considered the crime a “brave act of repossession” that “must be applauded”.

“We hope that those who repossessed the jewellery are black people. Only black people have a legitimate right to take back that which belongs to them. All the mineral wealth in South Africa was stolen from black people.

“BLF will ask both the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and the National Prosecuting Authority to investigate Johann Rupert for possible tax evasion, money laundering and possession of illicit goods. Why would a warehouse keep jewelry to the value of up to R300 million?

“As long as the historical mass robbery of black people of their land and wealth is not corrected, such acts of repossession, if conducted by blacks, are infinitely revolutionary.”

In a well-publicised extract from journalist Pieter du Toit’s book The Stellenbosch Mafia, Rupert says he is angry about allegedly being unfairly cast as the face of “white monopoly capital”, what he describes as Sars trying to “sabotage him”, suspicions that his phone has been tapped, and the insults he endures in public – among several other things.

He said he’d warned the government there would be economic consequences if Sars “ever again tries to sabotage” him.

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