Watch enough series about drug dealers and criminals (hey, it beats that Kardashian and Love Island garbage), and you’ll know that the golden rule seems to be keeping your newfound wealth on the down-low.

Don’t be flashy, because that can attract unwanted attention, or something alone those lines.

That didn’t seem to be a worry for Tshifhiwa Matodzi, former chair of VBS Bank, Robert Madzonga, CEO of Vele Investments and a former COO of VBS, and Kabelo Matsepe, a former leader of the ANC Youth League in Limpopo.

They are three of the names implicated in “The Great Bank Heist”, a report on the looting of VBS Bank released this week by advocate Terry Motau.

According to Times LIVE, the report “found that over the past three years more than 50 people had benefited from “gratuitous” payouts totalling nearly R2bn from the Limpopo-based bank”.

First of all, some numbers:

The report says Matodzi pocketed R325m and Madzonga received in excess of R30m through a vast network of companies and fronts.

Matsepe, described by Motau as the politically connected “fixer” who secured the pliancy of municipalities that pushed business towards VBS, is said to have received R35.4m.

Matodzi is certainly sitting pretty, and Madzonga and Matsepe with some tidy nest eggs. Before you think that having a name starting with ‘Ma’ is mandatory to join in on the pillaging, remember that Brian Shivambu, brother of the EFF’s Floyd, also got his paws on R16 million.

So who’s been doing what with their “gratuitous” payouts?

Facebook posts show that in December last year, three months before VBS was placed under curatorship due to a liquidity crisis, Matodzi, 41, the alleged kingpin in the fraud, hit the ski slopes in Alaska…

“I will bring lots of ice to take to Venda,” Matodzi [below right] joked with a friend who marvelled at the pictures he posted on Facebook.

Public documents show Matodzi has at least two properties in his name in SA, a R1.5m house in the plush Eagle Canyon Golf Estate west of Johannesburg and a R1.7m, 9ha farm on the outskirts of Pretoria…

Madzonga, who is also a pastor, has assets that include a mansion worth R8.5m in Blue Hills, north of Johannesburg, and a home in Plettenberg Bay.

His cars, including a Brabus-tuned Mercedes-Benz G63 which sells for R2.5m [above], a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce Phantom, have been flaunted on social media by his wife, beauty queen Khosi Madzonga.

That is Khosi right up top as well, sitting on that orange Lambo. She was actually questioned on how the couple funded their lavish lifestyle, and her vitriolic response to the journalist led to her being dropped as a Brand SA ambassador.

Not sure she needed that money, but what else is a beauty queen to do with her time?

Her Instagram has now been set to private, but a few screenshots still exist:

Robert Madzonga has protested his innocence, saying the payouts were for “salaries, bonuses, for cars and for bonds”.

Before we move on, a healthy dose of irony via an article from back in April. The beauty queen’s passion is to help the less fortunate and empower women.

As for Matsepe, he was the only one of the three who kept a relatively low profile, although his spending also raised some eyebrows:

Matsepe’s windfall included a bond of nearly R5.5m through VBS, which he used to buy a home in Midstream Estate in Centurion.

A company linked to Matsepe is also alleged to have channelled R250,000 to the ANC by purchasing a table for a gala dinner in January in Port Elizabeth to mark the party’s 106th birthday.

Efforts to contact Matsepe by phone were unsuccessful and he received but did not respond to a WhatsApp message with detailed questions.

Ah yes, the old blue tick treatment.

You can find the full VBS Bank report here.

Quick note – to put it into context, Markus Jooste’s Steinhoff crimes are estimated to have cost the Government Employees Fund around R20 billion, and investors somewhere in the region of R300 billion.

I wonder when we will hear from him next, especially now that it’s emerged that he engaged in insider trading and told his mates to flog their Steinhoff shares days before the collapse.

[source:timeslive]