The state has seized assets worth R230 million from Noel Cunningham, who has been charged with defrauding Fidentia Holdings to the tune of R150m.
|||In one of SA’s biggest asset forfeitures, the state has seized assets worth R230 million from Noel Cunningham, who has been charged with defrauding Fidentia Holdings to the tune of R150m.
Klaas van Zyl,
Western Cape deputy director of public prosecutions: asset forfeiture unit, said houses across the country, along with vehicles and a large sum of cash, were seized from Cunningham, 70, after a final restraining order was granted by the Western Cape High Court last month.
“It’s one of the highest-value asset forfeitures, not only in the Western Cape but countrywide,” Van Zyl said.
The details were revealed on Friday during a media briefing by the National Prosecuting Authority.
The State alleges that Cunningham sold his R10m company Webworths to Fidentia Holdings for an inflated price of R160m in 2006, when Fidentia was represented by its then chief executive J Arthur Brown.
In a separate legal battle, Brown will go on trial on August 1 in the Western Cape High Court on charges of fraud, corruption, theft and money laundering involving billions of rand.
The former Fidentia boss allegedly defrauded a miners’ pension fund of billions, leaving nearly 50 000 widows and orphans of miners destitute.
In respect of Cunningham, the restraining order against him includes the forfeiture of funds held in trust by his children, after investigations revealed he had diverted some of the funds, which he allegedly obtained fraudulently, into their trust accounts, according to Van Zyl.
Of total assets worth R266m seized in 61 cases in the Western Cape between April last year and this May, R230m was seized from Cunningham. The remainder involved 60 different cases, the provincial asset forfeiture unit’s figures reveal.
The R230m sum was calculated according to provisions of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, and Van Zyl said these took into account the fact that the benefit Cunningham allegedly received had increased during the past six years, since he sold his company.
Cunningham will appear in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court again on July 25 on charges of defrauding Fidentia, by falsifying the share price and turnover of his company, and selling it to Fidentia at a “hugely inflated price”.
Attorney William Booth, who represents Cunningham in his fraud case, said the State had seized all his client’s assets, but that Cunningham might appeal.
Booth added that
Cunningham could be acquitted at the end of his criminal case. If so, he would request his assets back.
During a previous court appearance in April, Booth applied for the case against his client to be dropped on medical and compassionate grounds.
Booth presented doctors’ reports that showed Cunningham has advanced Parkinson’s disease, and is unfit to stand trial.
However, the State said it would appoint a medical expert to examine Cunningham to verify his condition.
henriette.geldenhuys@inl.co.za
Weekend Argus