The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is in the process of attaching billions of rands of assets of former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste, the alleged ringleader in a financial fraud that saw investors lose more than R200 billion and resulted in the 95% collapse of the share price in 2017.
The SA Reserve Bank published the Western Cape High Court order on its website, which showed that Jooste and the respondents were suspected of contravening foreign exchange regulations.
The assets to be attached included those of the Silver Oak Trust, art worth about R98.78m, financial assets worth R1.21bn, loans receivable of R131.12m, Jooste’s house in Voelklip, Hermanus, at least six luxury vehicles, jewellery and other art worth some R795 400, books, documents, electronic devices and passwords, and the Lanzerac wine estate in Stellenbosch.
News24 reported that a SARB team arrived at Lanzerac to begin carrying out the attachment order.
Apart from Jooste, other respondents in the attachment order were listed as his son Michael, Gary Harlow and Rian du Plessis who are trustees of the Jooste family trust, Silveroak, his wife Ingrid, Lanzerac Estate Investments, the Registrar of Deeds in Cape Town and Petrus Albertus Venter.
Last year, SARB investigators attached the assets of Berdine Odendaal, who is believed to have been Jooste’s romantic partner.
The financial collapse of Steinhoff saw thousands of local and foreign investors, ranging from small to major shareholders, losing their investments.
In South Africa these had included the Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF) and well-known businessman Christo Wiese.
A subsequent PwC forensic investigation revealed substantial alleged accounting frauds and other governance failures at Steinhoff that had occurred between 2009 and 2017.
These had included inflated profits that had been facilitated by fake transactions. PwC has only released to the public the executive summary of the report.
Meanwhile, Steinhoff, which is recovering but saddling with large debt after having to pay out billions in settlement to investors locally and internationally, is assisting the Hawks and other state agencies with their investigations into the Steinhoff matter.
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