Major setback for business battle against white-collar crime 


So says the Institute for Security Studies head of money laundering Charles Goredema, speaking at a seminar in Cape Town on the future of investigations and prosecutions of organised crime against the backdrop of the ANC's planned revamping of the Scorpions. According to a FIN24.com report, Gordema said the country would feel the loss of these relationships that had taken the Scorpions years to establish. 'I am not part of the Scorpions and have no business making out a case for them, but without the trust between investigators and private sector structures, the fight to track down dirty money will suffer a severe blow,' he said. He said it was necessary to have people in the private sector that assisted investigators in money laundering investigations as some companies fell victim to this crime through employees' deceitful conduct. In other cases, companies were set up from the start with the sole purpose of moving dirty money. Full FIN24.com report

SA will need a well-resourced, multi-disciplinary investigating team to fight organised crime in the absence of the Scorpions, says Public Prosecutions deputy director Anton Steynberg, who has been a line prosecutor in the Directorate of Special Operations in Kwa-Zulu-Natal since 2002. According to a Cape Times report, Steynberg presented several models for policing in SA, saying that although the Scorpions were likely to be disbanded, it was not necessary to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' and that lessons could be learnt from the way the directorate operated and its success. What was needed was 'an integrated, well-resourced and multi-disciplinary investigating team with a clear and unambiguous mandate'. Full Cape Times report (subscription needed)