PICS: NPA seizes over R165m of businessman Thoshan Panday, others’ assets

The NPA’s Asset forfeiture Unit (AFU) and Investigating Directorate (ID) have seized luxury assets worth more than R165 million from the accused in the R47 million Soccer World Cup fraud and corruption case involving Durban businessman Thoshan Panday and former KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni.

Provisional restraint order

The seizure of the assets – which include designer bags, cars, and other property – was executed on Monday in and around Durban, by a curator appointed by the Durban High Court.

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The assets are believed to be proceeds of crime and belong to Panday and his family members, Ngobeni and seven others.

ID spokesperson Sindisiwe Seboka said the court granted the NPA the order in chambers on 29 March 2023, and the curator was then issued with letters of curatorship by the Master of the High Court on 11 April 2023.

“The restraint order has been granted in terms of Chapter 5 of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998 (POCA) against property/assets of the nine persons charged and persons or entities they gave gifts to.

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“The other defendants whose assets have been restrained are Colonel Navin Madhoe, former Section Head of Acquisition in Supply Chain Management (SCM) at the office of the provincial commissioner, Captain Ashwin Narainpershad, formerly of SCM KZN, businessman Toshan Panday and his family members Arvenda Panday (mother), Privisha Panday (ex-wife), Seevesh Maharaj Ishwarkumar (brother-in-law), Kajal Ishwarkumar (sister) and Tasleem Rahiman (his professional assistant),” said Seboka in a statement.

R47m Soccer World Cup corruption case

The alleged criminal syndicate is accused of acting in common purpose to deprive the South African Police Service (Saps) of an amount of over R47,3 million through acts of fraud, corruption, forgery, bribery and money laundering before and during the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.

The order of over R165 million is the amount of the proceeds of unlawful activities allegedly received by the enterprise, and the individual parties in furtherance of the conspiracy (common purpose) and the commissioning of the crimes.

The state alleges that the three former Saps officials – Ngobeni, Madhoe and Narainpershad – failed to follow the prescripts of the Public Finance Management Act by, among others, deliberately delaying applications for procurement authority from the national Saps office for accommodation for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

They are also accused of deliberately not following up on invitations they had sent to existing service providers that charged reasonable rates.

The former cops are therefore accused of causing the need to procure accommodation for Saps members for the tournament on an urgent basis, at inflated rates, a mere couple of days before the tournament was due to start.

“Their intentional delay in procuring accommodation well in advance of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, led to an urgent deviation from normal procurement processes which had to be processed in haste by the national office.”

Mastermind of criminal enterprise

The five entities alleged to have been controlled by and associated with Panday were allegedly paid over R47.3 million by Saps between October 2009 and August 2010.

In the application to the high court, the NPA alleged that Panday was the mastermind of the criminal enterprise.

“By the end of 2009, he managed to get control of Public Order Policing Unit: Operational Response Service (ORS) deployment accommodation contracts with the help of Madhoe and Narainpershad in KZN SCM (by deceiving the official who usually did procurement for ORS members to be deployed.).”

The ID said the curator froze the bank accounts of all the accused cited in the restraint order and the return date of the provisional order is 29 May 2023.

The criminal case linked to the restraint returns to the Durban High Court on 25 August 2023.

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