Money for nothing: Gupta ‘fixer’ Kuben Moodley scored R232m for no work – report

Head of the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Investigating Directorate Hermione Cronje has submitted an affidavit accusing Gupta-linked company Regiments Capital of being part of a state capture “criminal conspiracy”.

This is through their payments to a company owned by alleged “Gupta fixer” Kuben Moodley, who Cronje said did no work but received R232 million.

A report in the Sunday Times details how payments totalling R210 million were made to Albatime, Moodley’s company, within a year. Invoices submitted later raised the total received by Moodley to R232,082,223.

Close Gupta ally Salim Essa, who is currently living in Dubai with the Gupta brothers, is also believed to be involved in the appointment of Regiments Capital, who are believed to have unlawfully scored hundreds of millions of rands from state-owned freight-rail and ports company Transnet, as management consulting company McKinsey’s local partner.

According to Cronje’s affidavit, all Moodley did to score his millions was “introduce” Regiments Capital to the two companies.

“Neither Esssa nor Moodley would render any service beyond introducing Regiments Capital to McKinsey and Transnet,” Cronje’s affidavit says.

This follows Cronje embarking on an investigation into fraud and corruption related to Transnet.

The NPA Investigating Directorate has obtained a restraint order against the assets of the controversial company, which has been accused of involvement in Gupta-linked state capture.

The NPA has reportedly flagged R1.1 billion of Regiments’ revenue as the proceeds of crime, and the Assets Forfeiture Unit has seized assets to this value after the High Court in Johannesburg granted the directorate a restraint order, on Wednesday.

The seizure of assets sees the three people believed to have been caught up in state capture through their work for Regiments – Eric Wood, Niven Pillay and Litha Nyhonyha – forced to surrender the assets of all their companies and family trusts.

“The order relates to charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering perpetrated when Regiments acted as transaction advisers to Transnet and performed investment services to the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSDBF),” said a statement from the NPA.

The application for the restraint order was timed to coincide with the defendants’ assets being released from an anti-dissipation order in favour of the TSDBF.Transnet, which itself has been caught up in the crosshairs of state capture, has reached a settlement with Gupta-linked Regiments Capital in relation to the controversial ‘1064 locomotives contract’.

Transnet acting group CEO Mohammed Mahomedy told Moneyweb during its interim results briefing in November that a settlement agreement has been reached which effectively means Transnet will get back around R180 million in advisory- and other fees related to the multi-billion-rand locomotives contract.

While Mahomedy did not go into further detail about the agreement with Regiments, he conceded that the contract – which involved four major global rail locomotive companies – had been racked by irregularities and delays.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman. Background reporting, Suren Naidoo)

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