SA bank officials implicated in alleged money laundering

Several key officials at three major South African banks are allegedly helping a gold smuggling gang launder millions of dollars of dirty cash in exchange for regular bribes, Al Jazeera reports. The officers at Standard Bank, Absa Bank and Sasfin Bank are alleged to have on the payroll of Mohamed Khan, a money launderer working for cigarette magnate and smuggler Simon Rudland, thousands of documents and interviews with Khan’s former colleagues reveal. These officers would enable dubious money transfers from Khan’s companies and remove evidence from the computer systems, all while getting monthly payments from Khan. The allegations are part of Gold Mafia, a four-part investigation by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit, which shows how multiple gangs smuggle gold from Zimbabwe and use it to launder vast amounts of money. The unit also interviewed Dawood Khan, Mohamed Khan’s brother who helped forge documents; another of Khan’s former partners referred to as 'Jimmy' to protect his identity; and Khan’s ex-wife Wardah Latief. Khan, who goes by the nickname Mo Dollars, heads PKSA and Salt Asset Management, SA-based financial services firms. Among their biggest clients is Zimbabwean millionaire Simon Rudland, owner of Gold Leaf Tobacco, one of Southern Africa’s largest cigarette brands. SARS authorities have accused Rudland of evading taxes by selling cigarettes on the black market. ‘The illicit cigarette trade earns rand cash. So he gets a ginormous amount of rand cash,’ fellow Zimbabwean gold smuggler Ewan Macmillan told undercover reporters, who were posing as Chinese criminals looking to launder unaccounted cash. ‘He has the same problem in legitimising his money as you have.’ Mo Dollars does this for Rudland; cleansing his dirty money using a complicated web of front companies, fake invoices, bribery and gold, the documentary alleges.

At the centre of this scheme is a set of companies with bank accounts in different parts of the world – Aulion in Dubai, Vantage Leaf in Mauritius, Velmont Valley in Switzerland and Liberty Gold in the US, Al Jazeera says. Allegedly using fake invoices and identities, Mo Dollars transfer millions of unaccounted dollars in each transaction to these companies, which are run by Rudland’s partners, the investigation shows. PKSA and Salt Asset Management, which send the money, claim to be doing so in lieu of imports of tobacco, clothes and gold – imports that never actually enter SA. To ‘move’ that money, Dawood Khan said Mo Dollars bribes influential officers at several South African banks so no red flags are raised during the transactions. Rudland told Al Jazeera that the allegations against him formed part of a smear campaign by an unidentified third party. He described himself as ‘a strong businessman…competing against the greedy and the envious’. He denied any involvement in the sale of illicit cigarettes, in gold or other smuggling and in sanctions busting. He accepted that he had had dealings with Mohamed Khan, who he agreed ‘appeared’ to be a money launderer, and that Gold Leaf and another of his companies had authorised Khan’s SALT Asset Management to act as their agent, but denied that any form of money laundering had been undertaken for him or any of his businesses. Payments made to Vantage Leaf, Liberty Gold and Velmont Valley had nothing to do with Rudland or his companies, he said.

Gold Leaf said that it emphatically denied any involvement, past or present, in money laundering, the trade in illegal gold or related matters. According to Al Jazeera, the company said that no ‘untaxed’ or ‘illegal’ cigarettes could be ‘attributed’ to Gold Leaf, though the proceeds of the illicit sale of its products by others did appear to have been moved between jurisdictions and thereby laundered. Gold Leaf said its limited transactions with Khan and SALT had always been lawful and proper. Gold Leaf had never made any payment to Aulion, it claimed. Mohamed Khan told Al Jazeera that all allegations against him were false and were based on speculation, conjecture and manufactured and doctored evidence. He confirmed that he was the owner of the PKSA Group and of SALT and that Gold Leaf was a client of SALT but he denied involvement in money laundering or other criminal activity. He denied bribing anyone who worked in the South African banking sector. Liberty Gold denied all knowledge of the matters and individuals we featured, while Vantage Leaf denied any knowing involvement in money laundering or false invoicing. Sasfin Bank told Al Jazeera it was taking vigorous action against suspended and former employees and clients of its foreign exchange unit and said that it no longer had a relationship with any of the businesses identified in this investigation, including SALT. ABSA said it had passed Al Jazeera’s findings to its forensic investigative unit, while Standard Bank told Al Jazeera it has a zero-tolerance stance relating to fraud and criminality and would report and assist in any legal investigation.