WATCH: No more being Cheeky as Hawks arrest controversial Watson
The former Eastern Province Rugby Union president, who led the union into liquidation, has been charged with fraud.
Cheeky Watson isn’t laughing anymore. Photo: Michael Sheehan/Gallo Images.
In a stunning development, Dan ‘Cheeky’ Watson, the controversial former president of the Eastern Province Rugby Union (EPRU), has been arrested on charges of fraud.
According to HeraldLIVE, Watson and three other colleagues – Nadia Gerwel, Andrea Wessels and Mandisa Mkaza – handed themselves over to police at the Mount Road Station in Port Elizabeth.
A fifth accused, Stephan Pretorius, is currently in Cape Town.
https://twitter.com/LThipa/status/847700145571364866
They were subsequently taken into custody by the Hawks, who had been investigating the troubled union since last year and raided its offices last September.
Watson and co’s arrests are related to the misuse and laundering of up to R200 million from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) budget.
The EPRU has been in dire straits since the end of 2015 and was eventually liquidated in August last year.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Ratepayers’ Association had been the initial party to shine a light on the EPRU’s affairs by claiming the union had been using ratepayers’ money to the tune of R120 million over the four years since the Kings were first confirmed as Super Rugby participants in 2012.
Watson and his co-accused are already at the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court awaiting their preliminary hearing.
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