Opulent lifestyle of graft suspects unpacked

Rushil and Nishani Singh blew more than R120m on ultra-rare cars, spending cash loaned from Investec Bank and meant for road construction projects in Ghana, to assemble a fleet of luxury cars. Liquidators Cloete and Thomas Murray were murdered just as they had started to unearth evidence that the siblings – with whom they spent their final hours – had allegedly built a billion-rand empire on a series of lies and bribes. A News24 investigation spanning more than a year has revealed an expansive web of alleged corruption spun by the Singhs in Ghana, where they secured a handful of road and hospital construction contracts, worth at least $54.8m, and maintained favour by allegedly paying at least R50m in bribes to influential politicians in that country. The Singhs are also at the centre of a major police investigation into a fraud case over a forged R150m Stanbic Bank guarantee that was handed to Investec by the Singhs to secure a loan in 2021. Investec loaned the Singhs and their companies, BIG Business Innovations Group and Ghana Infrastructure Company, more than $30.1m between 2016 and 2021 – including cash loans for construction work in Ghana, home loans and car loans. The bank is seeking to recover $24.6m from the Singhs and their companies at home and abroad, with numerous court cases still in progress around the country.

The Singhs have denied wrongdoing in court papers, but refused to respond to questions from News24, including queries centred on their apparent unwillingness to save their SA company from failing by selling some of their cars – some of which are worth up to $1.3m. Their spending is a key cause for their failure to make payments on the Investec loans, leading to the discovery of a forged R150m bank guarantee and the appointment of the Murrays to liquidate two of their companies, BIG Business Innovations Group, and I2 Infinite Innovations.