[imagesource: Reuters / Mike Hutchings]

South African billionaire businessman Christo Wiese has been forthright in his criticism of Markus Jooste after losing a massive chunk of his fortune in the Steinhoff scandal.

He now recognises that Jooste “isn’t a normal person”, “knowing every button to push with every person”, as he orchestrated what’s widely regarded as the biggest corporate scam in South African history.

Every aspect of the scandal is told in stark detail in the Showmax docuseries Steinheist.

Thousands of local and foreign investors, ranging from small to major shareholders, lost their investments during the financial collapse of Steinhoff in 2017- a figure of more than R200 billion – including the Government Employees’ Pension Fund and Wiese, who had served on the Steinhoff board as chairperson.

Image: Getty Images

Per IOL, Wiese said he was pleasantly surprised to see the SA Reserve Bank take initiative, finally attaching the former Steinhoff CEO’s assets worth billions of rands:

On Tuesday, the SARB attached billions of rand of assets including those of the Silver Oak Trust, art worth about R98.78 million, financial assets worth R1.21 billion, loans receivable of R131.12m, Jooste’s house in Voelklip, Hermanus, six luxury vehicles, jewellery and other art worth some R795 400, books, documents, electronic devices and passwords, and the Lanzerac Wine Estate in Stellenbosch.

“I got some of my money back in the settlement done by the company Steinhoff and I am pretty confident in the end, the outcome will be the right outcome, because Jooste defrauded me of the Lanzerac property and paid with shares he knew to be worthless, so we have sued him to cancel the deal and claim back Lanzerac and give him back his worthless shares,” he said.

Image: Micheal Olivier

Wiese said he had no doubt the saga would be a long “drawn-out affair, but you can’t hide where the money has gone, particularly against the Reserve Bank, they can talk to banks and regulators all over the world, they are well placed to prosecute a matter like this”.

Wiese said he always believed that Jooste would face the music eventually, and so he has:

“I often tell people who are very critical of our authorities that how come the Germans, who are really switched on, they are taking years to get to the bottom of this. That just tells you how complicated and sophisticated it was,” he said.

SARB investigators also attached the assets of Berdine Odendaal last year, who is believed to have been Jooste’s alleged mistress.

Steinhoff is still trying to recover from the large debt that Jooste left the company with, doing its due diligence in assisting the Hawks with the investigation, too.

[source:iol]