The men behind Bosasa’s tender fraud scandal

They are individuals who have rubbed shoulders with people in high places.

Angelo Agrizzi, Linda Mti, Andries van Tonder and Patrick Gillingham – among those arrested and charged in the Hawks’ swoop yesterday – have become synonymous with the multibillion-rand Bosasa-correctional services scandal that has been unscrambling at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

But who are the men nabbed by the Hawks?

For 17 years, Agrizzi worked for facilities management company Bosasa before a costly fallout with chief executive officer Gavin Watson that led to him spilling the beans about billions of rands worth of questionable tenders awarded by correctional services to Bosasa.

Mti is a former national commissioner of correctional services who has been implicated by Agrizzi in channelling massive tenders to Bosasa.

He has allegedly been a beneficiary of the Bosasa largesse, which included homes, money, security upgrades and cars.

During his testimony before the commission, veteran MP Dennis Bloem, who served a five-year term as chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee of correctional services, described the department under Mti’s leadership as “havoc”.

Van Tonder is Bosasa’s former CFO, who has revealed to the commission how the company provided false information to the South African Revenue Service in 2015, after it launched an investigation into the company.

He has allegedly been involved in dubious schemes of raising revenue for Bosasa, which included the use of ghost workers, fictitious invoices and the drawing of cash cheques.

As correctional services CFO under Mti, Gillingham allegedly has acquired five cars, a house and money for himself and family for ensuring that correctional services tenders were solely awarded to Bosasa.