SARB ordered to freeze vape shop owner’s accounts
Mohammed Ebrahim claims that he invested about R40m with vape shop owner Muhammad Karolia with the expectation that it would be used to develop padel courts east of Johannesburg.
That never happened, and Ebrahim wants his money back.
The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) yesterday ordered the SARB to put a freeze on all bank accounts under the control of Karolia, and ordered Absa and FNB to likewise freeze his accounts and provide eight months of bank statements on his accounts so that Ebrahim can see what has happened to his money.
Moneyweb reports that Karolia says the sum involved is R26m, not R40m.
Of this, R20.5m is sitting in a 60-day Absa call account. The remaining R5.5m has been paid back over a period of months, he insists, though the court papers tell a different story that an amount of close to R1m has been repaid after Ebrahim started to threaten legal action.
Neither Karolia nor his lawyer appeared in court to defend the matter.
The court also ordered the SARB to provide records of any forex transactions made by Karolia over the last eight months.
Also now frozen are bank accounts for his vape shop under the name House of Cloud.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
