Centurion lawyer released on bail in the R85m police branding corruption case
“He disguised it as fees.”
Pretoria-based attorney, Reshay Ramsamy Naidoo (32), was released on bail after he briefly appeared at the Pretoria magistrate’s court on Wednesday.
This comes as a total of 72 accused suspects part of the R85-million police branding corruption case is set to appear on Thursday at the Pretoria magistrate’s court.
Naidoo was granted R5 000 bail following his appearance on charges of money laundering, theft, fraud and contravention of the prevention of organised crime act (Poca) and acquiring of proceeds of unlawful activities, said Investigating Directorate spokesperson, Sindisiwe Twala.
Twala said Naidoo’s charges emanated from laundering R920 000 from his attorney’s trust account which he then transferred to his business account and “he disguised it as fees” .
She said that “in August last year, Ramsamy told his client, Prinesh Naidoo, to transfer from his business account named Imbobezi Enterprises the R920 000 to him for safekeeping. His reason was that the NPA’s Investigating Directorate (ID) and the National Police Commissioners special task team, had planned to freeze his clients’ account”.
“The client, trusting Naidoo, transferred the money, which Naidoo later squandered.”
Twala said the funds given to Naidoo belonged to one Kishene Chetty.
She said the state believed the flow of transactions further pointed to the fact that the companies involved in the branding of R85-million case were ‘fronts’.
Naidoo is the 46th person to be charged in the matter.
This comes as the Centurion attorney handed himself over to the anti-corruption task team on Tuesday.
Investigations into fraud and corruption related to the branding of SAPS vehicles, procurement of handcuffs, leg irons, outsourcing of vehicles from the SAPS garages, procurement of stationery and renovation of buildings began in 2018.
The national police have also revealed that almost every one of the SAPS employees allegedly involved in these cases has since been dismissed from the service.
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