Arthur Fraser opens criminal case against Ramaphosa over alleged multimillion-dollar heist  

A statement attributed to Arthur Fraser, former director-general of the State Security Agency (SSA), says that he has taken the “unprecedented” step of opening a criminal case against President Cyril Ramaphosa for allegedly concealing a multimillion-dollar robbery from the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the South African Revenue Service (SARS). 

The former spy boss’s media statement says the case “emanates” from the alleged theft of “in excess of four million US dollars” concealed “within the premises of the President’s Phala Phala farm in Waterberg, Limpopo”. Fraser claims the theft was carried out by robbers, in collusion with Ramaphosa’s domestic worker.  

Fraser claims in his statement that charges include “kidnapping of suspects, their interrogation on his property and bribery”, adding that the President allegedly “concealed the crime…” from the SAPS and SARS “and thereafter paid the culprits for their silence”. 

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-01-gupta-lawyers-bow-out-as-idcs-r287m-fight-against-oakbay-rolls-into-year-five/

This is not the first time that Fraser has threatened to reveal secrets about the elected occupants of the Union Buildings. Daily Maverick in 2020 reported that Fraser informed the Zondo Commission that he would be forced to reveal “state secrets” about presidents — past and present — as well as judges and parliamentarians in his evidence. 

Eyewitness News reported that the SAPS’s Colonel Athlenda Mathe said: “The South African Police Service can confirm that a case of money laundering, defeating the ends of justice and kidnapping has been registered at the Rosebank Police Station this afternoon… due processes will follow.” 

A Daily Maverick editorial in 2018 noted that, “As a spook, Fraser has been involved in, at best, questionable, and, at worst, unlawful practices. And this is not only over the Principal Agent Network (PAN) programme, effectively an unconstitutional parallel intelligence operation that between 2007 and 2010 chowed an estimated R1.5-billion of taxpayers’ money.” 

That same editorial noted that “Fraser was dubbed the ‘spy who saved Jacob Zuma’ after it publicly emerged that he was involved in the leaking of the so-called Spy Tapes, or National Intelligence Agency (NIA) phone taps of the then Scorpions’ leadership, later used to drop the corruption prosecution of Zuma on the eve of the 2009 elections.” 

In the final days of his tenure as National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Fraser made headlines in December 2021 when he “intervened” to disregard a Medical Advisory Board recommendation that the incarcerated Zuma not be released on medical parole. DM

 

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