Son of late MF leader on trial for fraud
ON TRIAL for R3.1 million fraud, alternatively theft, the son of the late MF leader Amichand Rajbansi could not help but smile when a key State witness seemingly had trouble recollecting details on Monday.
Vimal Rajbansi, along with North West businessman Gideon Pretorius and Durban North businessman Younus Patel, are on trial in the Durban Specialised Commercial Crime Court relating to a business deal involving the sale of office equipment.
The trio have pleaded not guilty.
Rajbansi’s counsel, Noel Winfred, put it to State witness Kevin Lai that his client is not guilty of theft and fraud relating to the 2010 transaction. “It was a legitimate business deal and it was the transaction that went wrong,” he said.
Lai is the operations and logistics manager at Rentworks, a company the State claims had paid another company, Brainwave, whose agent was Rajbansi, for the same office equipment that Brainwave had sold to Merchant West, which then leased it to Ditona, a company that went into liquidation two months later.
Merchant West had apparently discovered the alleged anomaly when it tried to recover the equipment before the liquidators got hold of it.
Pretorius had represented Ditona as director.
The State claims that on November 30, 2010, Patel unlawfully acquired, or was in possession of R2399000 in his bank account while knowing that it formed part of unlawful activities.
On Monday, Winfred, asked Lai to admit that he did not know the answers to questions put to him relating to the equipment.
Lai responded that he did not recall some things, including whether there was additional equipment or about the location of their serial numbers.
Asked if he had any comment on Winfred’s submission that Rajbansi was not guilty of wrongdoing as this was a legitimate business deal and it was the transaction that went “wrong”, Lai replied, “No”.
Pretorius and Rajbansi are out on bail of R25 000 each while Patel is out on R5 000 bail.
The case is proceeding.