South Africa: Accused's Possessions Could Be Confiscated

Source from:  Cape Argus (Cape Town) 20 August 2008 08/22/2008

The Asset Forfeiture Unit plans to seize goods from some members of a gang convicted of being part of a cigarette hijacking ring. Some members of the gang were also allegedly involved in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old boy and the theft of goods worth about R3-million. Syndicate members Achmat Mather, brothers Selwyn and Virgil De Vries, Julian van Heerden, Vernon Victor, Garry Williams, Llewelyn Smith and Francis Ngarinoma, were convicted earlier in 2008 and appeared in the Cape High Court on Tuesday for sentencing on counts including theft, kidnapping and robbery, under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act. Sentencing is set to continue on Wednesday. The convicted men belonged to a syndicate that hijacked British American Tobacco trucks in Rawsonville, Darling and Port Elizabeth. They then resold the stolen cigarettes to businessperson Mather. It is believed Lenasia-based Mather will be the AFU's main target, as well as the syndicate mastermind, Selwyn de Vries. De Vries has a previous conviction relating to a cash-in-transit robbery in which R10-million was stolen. He also reportedly owns a taxi business, which investigators believe was established with the stolen loot. The syndicate, headed by Selwyn and his brother Virgil, was bust in Johannesburg during a sting operation in 2003. However, officials centralised the case because the crimes were committed in Cape Town. Earlier in 2008, the court found eight of 11 suspected members of the syndicate guilty after it was proven that they were the perpetrators of an intricate and detailed plan which saw two of the accused, dressed in police or traffic officers uniforms, pull over the unsuspecting truck drivers and take off with their stock, which was taken and sold to Mather. A number of the original accused were acquitted while another, Vernon Aspeling, turned State witness. During mitigating arguments on Tuesday, De Vries's lawyer asked the court to reduce the prescribed sentence of life imprisonment because his client is a paraplegic. De Vries was paralysed by a shot from a police officer after he shot at another police official trying to arrest him on a previous occasion, unrelated to his current court case. His younger brother, Virgil, also pleaded for a lesser sentence as he had a wife and child to support and, according to his lawyer, "he was not an aggressive person". Bozalek pointed out that Virgil had brandished a gun and abducted Aspeling before he turned State witness. A week before he was set to testify, Aspeling's 10-year-old son was kidnapped, allegedly by a Johannesburg-based gang. The kidnapping case against Julian van Heerden, Vernon Victor and Llewelyn Smith will be heard after sentencing in the current trial is concluded. Enditem