The trial involving the suspected kingpin of a multimillion rand perlemoen smuggling syndicate, will get underway in the Port Elizabeth High Court on Wednesday.
Julian Brown, 32, a high school drop out, is facing a string of charges which includes racketeering.
Brown was arrested in June last year in a dramatic predawn raid at his home.
He is charged, alongside his alleged employees, Eugene Victor, 33, and Brandon Turner, 38.
Both Brown and Turner are out on bail and appeared briefly in court on Tuesday.
However, proceedings were halted for Victor to be requisitioned from prison.
Brown is being represented by well known defence advocate, Terry Price SC, while Victor and Turner are being represented by attorney Paul Roelofse.
According to the indictment, Brown faces an additional charge of money-laundering in relation to the purchase of a luxury vehicle.
The prosecution alleges that during September 2015, Brown visited Dada’s Motorland, a second hand car dealer near Fourways, Gauteng, and expressed interest in a white Ferrari California valued at almost R1.9-million.
Brown allegedly approached Martin Kriel and asked him to buy and finance the Ferrari and register it in his name in lieu of a payment of R500 000 in cash.
Brown agreed to pay the monthly installments in cash to Kriel.
He then gave Kriel the amount of R502 000 in cash in return for the transaction.
In October 2015, Kriel bought and financed the Ferrari California and the vehicle was registered in his name.
The luxury vehicle was delivered to Kriel’s residence and Brown collected it at a later stage.
The State believes the R502 000 was the proceeds of unlawful perlemoen activities.
Other men listed in the indictment are associates who allegedly helped Brown build up his multimillion rand perlemoen enterprise.
In a detailed indictment, the prosecution sets out the nature of the business which allegedly involved the packing, drying, salting, freezing and processing of abalone for sale outside South Africa.
The indictment states that these alleged operations took place across Nelson Mandela Bay involving a number of role players. Operations ran from namely, Forest Hill, Algoa Park , Westering, Sherwood, Kamma Ridge and North End.
The State further alleges that in May 2015 Turner operated an illegal abalone processing establishment from his home in Westering, where 7570 units of abalone weighing over one ton were later discovered.
“They worked in the cutting up, separating parts, cleaning, sorting, lining and preserving of abalone,” the indictment reads.
Brown earlier claimed that he made his money from scrap metal and the sale of second-hand cars before registering his construction business, J&B Construction.
Specialist environmental crime prosecutor advocate Martin le Roux is prosecuting the case.
-African News Agency (ANA)
