A South African woman based in Tauranga is said to be most relieved after being dropped from a NZ$50 million fraud investigation in her home country, linked to the Adriaan van Vuuren case in South Africa.
Earlier this year, South African police issued an arrest warrant for mother-of-four Sonya Joubert (headline photo). Joubert was sole director of two companies which received half a billion Rand (NZ$50m) from Trudon, an arm of state-owned telecommunications company Telkom.
According to South African police, the payments were for software services which were fraudulently invoiced over a nine-year period by Joubert’s business partner and Trudon’s IT manager at the time, Adriaan van Vuuren.
In March, after widespread publicity, van Vuuren committed suicide, and the investigation turned to Joubert.
Her Auckland lawyer Chris Patterson said South African authorities had accepted her evidence from New Zealand and she would not be forced to return.
Captain Carol Maluma, a spokesman for the South African crime-fighting unit the Hawks, confirmed the case against Joubert had been withdrawn. “Apparently the prosecution authority has informed the defence that they are going to withdraw the case against Sonya; reasons being, there is no reasonable prospect of possible prosecution.”
Joubert told reporter Catherine Harris of Stuff (stuff.co.nz) she had not felt free to speak earlier for legal reasons, but it had been a frightening experience.
“It has put a tremendous strain on us as a family. It was out of the blue, really unexpected and I was very scared. It was very difficult for me to focus, and us as a family to focus on anything else, really, except this case.
Pastor Francois and Sonya Joubert. Good Samaritans.
Pastor Francois and Sonya Joubert. Good Samaritans.
“When I was a little girl, my mum used to say to me that your name is everything, and I guess when this came through I realised how true that was, and how quickly that can be damaged.”
The family migrated to New Zealand in 2012. Joubert, 43, said they moved here for a better life and rejected any notion she had fled, as police had implied. “I really felt that was so misleading, especially as we’d been here such a long time.”
Her biggest fear had been that she would be forced to go back to South Africa to testify. An extradition process had been kicked off, and although charges were never laid, the offence carried a term of up to 15 years in jail.
Her adviser Janet Zuccoa said Joubert had been upfront with the authorities. “She didn’t run away, she didn’t try to hide, she was always available by phone or Skype, always available for them to come here and talk to her.”
Zuccoa said Joubert was uninvolved in the fraud, which had been very sophisticated. “Those activities were very masked. They looked like standard ordinary business practice. There weren’t any alarm bells whatsoever that went off.”
Her South African lawyer, John Vickers, said Joubert had provided the authorities with documentation that showed “beyond doubt” that van Vuuren had duped both her and Trudon. Trudon would have been consulted in the decision to not pursue her case, he said.
Joubert told authorities she first met van Vuuren when she was running a small recruitment agency and interviewed him as a candidate.
When van Vuuren was later working for Telkom, he approached Joubert and suggested they start a joint venture supplying job candidates to Telkom and later, IT products..
Joubert received Trudon’s payments, and paid what she thought were the IT suppliers. She said she was unaware that the invoices she was paying were fake and that van Vuuren was in charge of the bank accounts she was paying into.
During this time, Van Vuuren invested in race horses and rapidly became a rising star on the South African racing scene. He was approaching a bail hearing and facing 25 years in jail when he committed suicide.
Joubert said the ordeal had taken a toll on both their social and professional lives.
Her husband Francois, a former pastor, had stepped back from his position running Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian aid charity, although he was now working for it again.
“It wasn’t what we wanted, his name to be dragged through the mud in this way, so it was damaging obviously for him.”
Joubert has registered several companies in New Zealand but said she was running only one, an electrical safety mask business.
The family intended to stay in New Zealand for the lifestyle they came for, Joubert said.
“One of the things we enjoy about New Zealand is the fact that we can actually sleep peacefully at night and not worry about violence in your home.”
-Originally published in Sunday Star Times, New Zealand.
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