Cape Town - The legal woes of alleged underworld kingpin Nafiz Modack are worsening as he is set to go on trial for allegedly defrauding the SA Revenue Service (Sars) out of R46 million.
After spending months in the dock, facing a plethora of charges related to the murder of slain Anti-Gang Unit detective Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear, Modack was informed of his impending trial when he returned to the Western Cape High Court yesterday.
This comes amid months of delays after Modack was slapped with two high court indictments shortly after Kinnear’s murder.
Modack, alongside his mother, Ruwaida; brother, Yaseen; Faried van der Schyff; Bashier Syce; Layla Bedderson; Dominique McLachlan and Kulsum van der Schyff, was bust by the Hawks several years ago on fraud charges.
The group later appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court. They are facing more than 700 charges of racketeering, fraud, money laundering, forgery and uttering and contravention of the VAT Act.
The State is seeking to prove that the group had registered as VAT vendors and were e-filing claims for refunds which could not be determined. Payments of R46 million were received.
But the tax trial became hamstrung when the Western Cape High Court proceeded with the murder trial first.
According to the indictment, the State says a host of businesses and trusts registered by the “Modack Family Business”, which consists of security companies, car dealerships and other entities, were set up merely to claim tax returns.
The State alleges that Ruwaida was the manager of the enterprise as her home in Vanguard Estate was used as the address for the VAT vendors who submitted the false returns and she was a co-signatory on various bank accounts.
The State also alleges that Faried and Modack were the kingpins and details that Faried was a tax practitioner who allegedly submitted the false claims while Modack allegedly collated the false information.
The rest of the group are accused of being employees of the various entities and employees of the various vendors that were investigated by a Sars criminal investigator.
Modack appeared alone in the dock on Friday. The State prosecutor told the court that Legal Aid SA had appointed advocate Bash Sibda to represent him at the tax trial. Sibda was also appointed to represent Modack in the murder trial.
The case was postponed until August 30 when Modack will be joined with his co-accused and they will be given a date for the tax trial.
The Western Cape High Court also heard that Modack was behind the R6m extortion car dealership known as the Toy Shop.
In the Kinnear trial, Hawks detectives lifted the veil on multimillion payouts by Empire Car Investments which, at one stage, was owned by Yaseen and which the State alleges was a business set up to launder money for underworld activities.
Using bank statements, the investigators uncovered that several of Modack’s co-accused had not only received money from Empire but had also paid millions into the bank account.