Court documents have lifted the lid on the inner workings of a multi-million rand scam by alleged underworld kingpin Nafiz Modack and his family to defraud Sars.
Nearly three years after being busted along with his mother Ruwaida and brother Yaseen, Modack made his first appearance at the Western Cape High Court last week for their first pre-trial.
The trio along with former Sars employee Faried van der Schyff, as well as Bashier Syce, Layla Bedderson, Dominique McLachlan and Kulsum van der Schyff, were arrested by the Hawks for allegedly defrauding Sars out of R46 million.
The group face over 700 charges of racketeering, fraud, money laundering, forgery and uttering and contraventions of the Value Added Tax VAT Act.
The State is set to prove that they had registered VAT Value Added Tax vendors and were e-filing claims for refunds which could not be determined, and that payouts of R46m were received.
According to the indictment, a host of businesses and trusts registered by the ‘Modack Family Business’ which consists of security companies, car dealerships and other entities, were set up merely to claim tax returns.
The State alleges that Ruwaida was the manager of the enterprise and her home in Vanguard Estate was used as the address for the VAT vendors.She was also a co-signatory on various bank accounts.
The state alleges that Faried was a tax practitioner who allegedly submitted the false claims while Nafiz allegedly collated the false information.The rest of the group are accused of being employees of the various entities and vendors.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazilila said the case has been postponed to March 20 for the State to make enquiries with the Department of Correctional Services about whether Modack can be brought closer to Cape Town on certain days for consultation. He is currently held at Helderstroom Prison.