Bank fraud accused dies in custody

An accused in a fraud investigation spanning SA, Ghana and the US has died. Nishani Singh died in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg on Saturday. She was in a wheelchair when she appeared in court recently when she revealed she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and pneumonia. Singh, together with her brother, Rushil, was in custody pending trial on allegations of defrauding Investec Bank of hundreds of millions of rand. ‘She had been referred to an external hospital on numerous occasions for tertiary medical care. Correctional Services is unable to disclose the cause of death, but such is made available to the family by the hospital,’ said Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo. News24 reports that the Singhs have been in custody since late August after the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crimes Court denied them bail. A subsequent High Court appeal of the decision also failed. The Singh siblings were at the centre of the final case liquidators Cloete and Thomas Murray were working on the day they were murdered in a shooting on the N1 between Johannesburg and Pretoria on 18 March 2023. The Murrays had spent the entire morning with them securing properties owned by their company, I2 Infinite Innovations. It was part of a sprawling empire spanning SA, Ghana, the US and UK that had come under threat due to a failure to pay back massive loans from Investec. The bank was pursuing the liquidation and sequestration of both the Singhs and had filed criminal charges against the pair for fraud when it emerged they had submitted a fraudulent bank guarantee from Stanbic Bank in Ghana to Investec to secure a $10m loan and other credit totalling more than $25.5m from the bank between 2017 and 2022.

Full News24 report