Shareholder bust for ‘defrauding’ company of R250m

A shareholder has swapped the boardroom for a court dock after he was arrested for allegedly defrauding his company of R250m.

Edmund Pitso Madibo, 48, appeared in the Palm Ridge specialised commercial crime court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, charged with multimillion-rand fraud. Hawks spokesperson Capt Lloyd Ramovha said Madibo, who was a shareholder at Pretoria-based Aesh Refineries, allegedly defrauded the company by changing its bank account with the South African Revenue Service (Sars).

“The company had an account with Absa Bank and Madibo submitted a new account from Nedbank to Sars. He then informed Sars to process VAT refunds into the new account. The money was deposited into his bank account on May 4 2018 and the other shareholders did not have knowledge of the transaction,” said Ramovha.

He said the matter was reported to the Brackendowns police station in Alberton in May 2018. The case was then assigned to the Hawks’ serious commercial crime investigation team and the probe culminated in the arrest of Madibo.

He was released on R50,000 bail. The case was postponed to March 9.

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