Ovation curators apply for urgent interdict

Rapport notes a shocking story unfolded in court of how investors lost R300m in illegal schemes. The victims of the scams included investors in the failed JMM, which invested hundreds of millions of rands amid promises of high interest rates. Instead of getting rich quickly, their money disappeared in a huge fraud scam with Ovation. The interdict was also sought pending the preparation of an application to sequestrate Du Plooy. According to court papers, the property that would have come under the hammer in the past week would have been used to pay off Du Plooy\'s R35m debt to Dynamic Wealth. It is being argued in court papers that Du Plooy stole R216m in a series of transfers from Ovation. Many of the properties that would have come under the hammer were bought with this money. This money was allegedly transferred to trusts under Du Plooy\'s control via a false bank account opened by Cruickshank after he had bribed an Absa employee. Some of the money was first paid to Cruickshank companies, but later channelled to one of Du Plooy\'s trusts. A further R10.3m also flowed from the fraudulent Ovation account to the Du Plooy-controlled Entegra Trust. An investigation is still under way on where the money went to, but the applicants believe that Du Plooy also used this amount for personal enrichment by purchasing property through his different trusts. Du Plooy had to file an answering sworn statement by Saturday, but failed to do so. Full Rapport report on the FIN24 site

Brown, meanwhile, has successfully blocked a bid to confiscate two of his South African properties. Judge Roger Cleaver had an application by curator Dines Gihwala to confiscate two seaside homes valued at about R10m John Hunter, Brown\'s lawyer, said, according to Business Report. Fidentia was placed under curatorship on February 1 after a probe found it lost about R1bn in clients\' funds. Full report in Business Report

But the curators have not been deterred. A Moneyweb report quotes curator Dines Gihwala as saying Brown will be sued for R11.5m over homes he allegedly bought with stolen funds. The R11.5m is the amount Brown paid for the two seaside homes about three years ago, Gihwala said. \'I\'m not going to lose this war,\' Gihwala said. \'Anything that suggests impropriety, I\'m going to go in there with sniffer dogs.\' Full Moneyweb report

There’s some bad news for investors, though. Fidentia curators expect to recover only between 25% and 30% of the more than R1bn invested, which includes the lost investments of widows and orphans. Business Report says Ginwala and George Papadakis appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to report on progress retrieving taxpayers’ money since Fidentia was place under curatorship on March 27. The Transport and Education Training Authority, which invested about R200m in Fidentia, had been paid back only R16m so far, MP’s heard yesterday. Papadakis said a distribution should begin early next year, with the bulk of the distribution completed by the following December. By then the training authority would have received the bulk of the distribution, he said. The curators said about R50m had been paid back to investors in Fidentia’s Living Hands Umbrella trust of orphans and widows. Full report in Business Report