SIU uncovers land fraud linked to attorneys
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has referred 208 cases to the NPA following the illegal sale of 221 properties in the Villa Liza township in the City of Ekurhuleni, reports News24. The stolen properties were valued at R58m.
The SIU has also found that none of the property transfers that took place between January 2002 and October 2024 was sanctioned by the municipality.
Also, fraudulent documents were submitted to the Deeds Office, and the SIU found that the conveyancer lacked the authority to transfer the land. This has resulted in the SIU also making 208 referrals to the Legal Practice Council and SARS for tax non-compliance.
There are also 174 referrals to the Financial Intelligence Centre to combat corruption, money laundering, and financial crimes.
This was revealed in a SIU briefing to Parliament’s Scopa.
SIU Gauteng boss, Sagren Reddy, said that while the case probed the theft of the land over more than 20 years, because the Gauteng Human Settlements Department transferred the land in 2022, it later emerged that the criminality took place between 2019 and 2024.
He told the committee that one of the sites had been owned by the attorneys and the conveyancers.
‘Here we find that the focus area was the unlawful transfer of land that belonged to the Ekurhuleni Municipality. It was fraudulent. Documents were submitted to the deeds office in Johannesburg, and this resulted in 221 sites that were illegally transferred to two trust accounts, one of which was owned by one of the attorneys and a conveyancer.’
Reddy said: ‘So there, what had happened is that these properties were transferred to the trust, and this attorney, in turn, sold it to private persons, and those properties were registered in their names.’
In addition to the referrals made, the SIU has launched litigation against the attorneys to recover the properties for the municipality, according to News24.
The investigation was launched during the tenure of retired city manager Imogen Mashazi, who recently appeared at the Madlanga Commission.
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.
