An accountant who was employed by popular South African sports retail outlet Street Fever, appeared in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Court on Friday on charges of fraud amounting to over R8 million.
Between April 2016 and May 2017, Ravishkar Ramgoolam had direct access to the business banking system and assisted the Financial Manager Ashraf Brey in making payments to creditors.
According to the indictment, the accused prepared remittance advice, created spreadsheets, which included the banking details and names of the creditors, the amounts that were due to them for payment and a summary sheet with all the invoices of the creditors.
Ramgoolam then presented these documents to Brey who would load the amounts on ABSA's business integrator for payment. Street Fever director, Haroon Bemat would then sign off on payments, relying on the information prepared by Ramgoolam.
According to the indictment, Ramgoolam had nine bank accounts and fraudulently substituted the banking details of Street Fever's suppliers with his own banking details. This resulted in large sums of money being paid into Ramgoolam's bank account by Street Fever, the charge sheet reads.
Then in May last year, Haroon Bemat and Dawood Bemat spoke to Ramgoolam about the alleged theft. According to the State, Ramgoolam voluntarily transferred an amount of R343,000 into Dawood Bemat's bank account. The next day, in the presence of an attorney, Ramgoolam signed an admission of guilt document and surrendered a Mercedez Benz vehicle to the Bemats.
However, the very same month, Ramgoolam opened a case against the Bemats at the Humewood police station, claiming they had stolen the amount of R343,000, stolen the vehicle and kidnapped him.
According to the State, he opened a false theft of motor vehicle, kidnapping and intimidation case against them and is facing an additional charge of defeating the administration of justice.
The case against him was postponed for his lawyer to peruse the docket.
The matter will resume on November 5.
- African News Agency (ANA)
