Nafiz Modack’s younger brother has been sent to Valkenberg for mental observation in a multi-million rand tax evasion case.
Yaseen Modack, 28, was referred to the psychiatric hospital by the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court following claims that he is “not well”.
The brothers were busted alongside their mother, Ruwaida, former Sars employee Faried van der Schyff, as well as Bashier Syce, Nadia Sait, Dominique McLachlan and Kulsum van der Schyff, by the Hawks in October last year and face multiple charges relating to tax fraud worth R46 million.
The Hawks later busted Layla Bedderson and along with the group, she was charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, forgery and uttering and contraventions of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act.
The State is set to prove that the group had registered as Value Added Tax vendors and were e-filing claims for refunds which could not be determined, and that payments of R46m were received.
Ruwaida and Yaseen were granted R50 000 bail each, Syce was given R25 000, Said R20 000, McLachlan R10 000 and Kulsum R10 000.
Nafiz, 40, and Faried were remanded in custody.
At the time, NPA spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said the alleged underworld kingpin was arrested at the Blue Down’s Magistrates’ Court where he was applying for bail in the murder case of Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) commander, Lieutenant Charl Kinnear.
This bail application was denied last week and Nafiz was sent back to Drakenstein Prison.
Ntabazalila explains the group returned to court on Monday where Van der Schyff’s bail application was postponed to 27 January.
He says Nafiz and Yaseen were not present during court proceedings.
“The case of accused 4 [Yaseen Modack] was also postponed to 9 October 2022.
“He is admitted at Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital.”
On 22 November 2021, his lawyer told the Magistrate that Yaseen suffered from schizophrenia and had been booked into a hospital over that weekend.
Meanwhile, Kulsum and Bedderson are hiring new attorneys for the case.
“The matter was then postponed until 17 March 2022 on respect of all the accused in order to give their attorneys an opportunity to study the docket contents,” says Ntabazalila.
monique.duval@inl.co.za