Guards at Johannesburg’s Sun City prison caught fraud-accused Rushil Singh with two cellphones just days before his fourth attempt to secure bail, reports News24.

Singh, who is in the middle of a R178m fraud trial, has been in custody since August 2024.

The trial, sitting in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Palm Ridge, has heard evidence from a handful of state witnesses to date and is set to continue next year.

It is understood that a new application for bail will be heard by the court tomorrow.

On 14 October, hours after the Department of Correctional Services was asked about Singh being caught with cellphones on three previous occasions, officials conducted a search and found two cellphones in his cell.

According to the department’s spokesperson, Singabakho Nxumalo, both devices were smartphones. 

Nxumalo said the discovery will lead to an internal disciplinary process and that the devices will be ‘analysed should there be content that may lead to other criminal activities’.

Nxumalo denied that Singh had been caught with cellphones on previous occasions. Singh had also registered an Instagram account with a username comprising his initials, ‘RS’ and the Roman numerals for the number 23.

The profile picture used is of the famous 1994 Porsche 911 Turbo that was used in the first Bad Boys film.

Singh purchased the car on auction in January 2022 for $1.4m – approximately R22m at the time.

The Porsche, believed to be somewhere in the US, is currently being sought by the curators of Singh’s estate and the liquidators of his company, BIG Business Innovations Group.

The new bail bid is set to be heard by Magistrate Phindi Keswa on 30 October 2025 and is the third time she will hear an application by Singh for bail.

Full News24 report