Shower buddies - the explosive inside story of 'diamond swindler' Louis Liebenberg’s political wheeling and dealing

Former President Jacob Zuma and now at The Afrikaners Leaders Forum held at The Maslow Time Square in Pretoria on 16 March 2024. (Photo: Emacous Simphiwe Moyo)

By Marianne Thamm

23 Nov 2024

Twenty-two pages reveal shocking details about the ways in which the diamond dealer allegedly tried to buy influence and protection from politicians and law enforcement officials, among others.

An explosive, first-hand witness account by Hein Jooste, security boss for alleged diamond scheme fraudster Louis Liebenberg, sketches an astounding portrait of a self-absorbed huckster with a Donald Trump-like appetite for power, corruption and chaos.

Until his arrest while dining out with his wife Desiree, known as Dezzi, at a Benoni restaurant on 22 October, Liebenberg strode the political landscape like an untouchable clown, a colossus in his own lunchtime. Now we know why.

Read more: In the name of God — understanding Louis Liebenberg’s grand diamond swindle

In a 22-page affidavit that forms part of the State’s case in the trial of Liebenberg and his alleged accomplices, Jooste sings like a canary. Employed by Liebenberg in 2021, the protection officer had a ringside seat in the golden circle of what the State believes is fraud worth billions.

Jooste names several politically exposed people who allegedly received money and gifts from Liebenberg. Most of them have tried to justify embracing this largesse.

They include Deputy President Paul Mashatile; former president Jacob Zuma; former minister of social development Lindiwe Zulu; Zuma’s “apparent” daughter Rejoice Zuma; mines inspector David Msiza of the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources; deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya; former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo; King Misuzulu kaZwelithini; unnamed senior officials from the South African Revenue Service (SARS); EFF MP Carl Niehaus; Izak van Zyl of the right-wing Boerelegioen; and Lets Pretorius and Wilhelm Pretorius of the Boeremag.

Jooste claims to have witnessed the transactions between individuals named in his affidavit and Liebenberg.

Zulu, he says, in May 2021 received R400,000 cash, counted in a restaurant at Monte Casino by Dezzi. Zulu has, meanwhile, denied any culpability, saying she had been a guest speaker at a “meet and greet” only and had been paid for this.

It is no secret that Liebenberg paid some of Zuma’s considerable legal fees, including for his attack on the media and an attempt to privately prosecute Media24 journalist Karyn Maughan and National Prosecuting Authority prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer. He also handed Zuma several cows.

With regard to Mashatile, Jooste says he attended a meeting at the deputy president’s home at Waterfall Estate in November 2023, where he was allegedly instructed to select a diamond as a gift for Mashatile, who has acknowledged the gift to “his wife”.

Msiza allegedly received R250,000 in cash counted in the back of a car. Mahumapelo, Jooste alleges, was the go-between and contact with “a sitting judge of the provisional court” in Mahikeng where the liquidation of Liebenberg’s company, Tariomix, was to take place.

Much of the detail in Jooste’s affidavit is bound to be revealed or contested in the lengthy court proceedings that are likely to follow in the wake of Liebenberg’s arrest.

Jooste also makes the explosive revelation that he was present at several meetings with senior police and SARS officials in Cape Town, where amounts of cash were handed over. He also alleges that Liebenberg ordered him to “take out” Vaughn Victor, the lead liquidator of Tariomix, but he refused this instruction.

Victor survived an attempt on his life in May 2023, when he was shot while travelling from Pretoria to OR Tambo International Airport.

Jooste reveals that he was an informer for “various state agencies” after being exposed to the innards of Liebenberg’s R4-billion fraudulent “diamond syndicate”.

Thousands of “investors”, mostly gullible Afrikaners, were entranced by Liebenberg’s promises of miraculous returns on diamond packages sold online – all with the blessing of the Lord. Many have been left penniless.

Louis Liebenberg in the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrates' Court on 15 November 2024. (Photo: Deaan Vivier / Gallo Images)

Buying influence and protection

Jooste accuses Liebenberg of using his ill-gotten wealth to buy influence and protection from “high-ranking government officials, law enforcement officials, elements within organised crime and many other political players he would deem able to assist him in furthering his cause”.

A former associate of private investigator Mike Bolhuis, Jooste went missing in July as the long-running Hawks investigation into Liebenberg’s alleged Ponzi scheme reached its climax. The bodyguard’s bakkie was found abandoned near Britstown in the Northern Cape in July. Jooste had clearly gone into hiding.

In his submission, Jooste sets out how he did not know who to trust in the South African Police Service (SAPS) as it had been “compromised”.

“Towards the end of June or July 2023, I reached out to my own contacts in the South African National Defence Force for advice on the matter,” he revealed. He explained he had made this decision after doubts about Liebenberg’s motives set in. Jooste was advised by his contacts to stay put and turn informer.

“This information was then sent through to various state agencies for further processing.

“I agreed and continued with my mandate with Liebenberg as per normal.”

Liebenberg, along with eight co-accused including Dezzie, is facing charges of fraud, theft, money laundering and racketeering. He has made several appearances in the magistrates’ court in Bronkhorstspruit.

He has not applied for bail, and Dezzi’s application for bail was denied on Thursday, 21 November, after she had already spent a month behind bars. The case was set to continue on Monday, 25 November. (This video shows Liebenberg being escorted out of court on 21 November after being disruptive.)

Liebenberg’s other co-accused are his former lawyer, Walter Niedinger (55); Tariomix co-director Ronelle Kleynhans (54); his personal assistant, Nicky van Heerden (58); his former office manager, Helena Schulenburg (59); husband and wife Hannes (41) and Christelle Badenhorst (42), former directors at companies run by Liebenberg; and another former director, Dewald Strydom (35). They are all out on bail.

Top row from left: Deputy President Paul Mashatile; Deputy National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya; King Misuzulu kaZwelithini; former minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu; mines inspector David Msiza of the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources. Bottom row from left: former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo; EFF MP Carl Niehaus; Lets Pretorius and Wilhelm Pretorius of the Boeremag; Jacob Zuma. (Photos: Gallo Images)

Compromising recordings

Liebenberg’s ultimate goal, claims Jooste, was to form a sort of alliance of the corrupt and aggrieved as he believed that President Cyril Ramaphosa had sold out “die Boere”.

He would leverage this accusation, smothered in a stew of religion, to perversely con “his own people” on his ruthless path to self-enrichment and political influence.

Liebenberg single-handedly sought to provoke chaos and division as he played “palace politics” across the country. His terrain and reach rippled far and wide, and the path was greased with cash, as the media has consistently reported. He held road shows in George, Gqeberha, Durban, Mbombela and Polokwane, with his “tour” ending at Monte Casino in Fourways.

“In executing these duties, I travelled extensively across South Africa, personally attending many covert and public meetings,” says Jooste.

He says Liebenberg would seek alignment “with anyone of influence who would be anti-Ramaphosa, anti-ANC, pro-Zuma and pro-Afrikaner/Boere. He approached many people of influence from the left and the right of the political spectrum.”

He describes his boss as one of his “principals” and says his affidavit pertains to “my knowledge and first-hand, eye-witness accounts of various instances of pay-offs, bribery and corruption, anti-government discussions, various conspiracies, that took place between April 2021 and May 2024”.

Hostile takeover and planned coup

Jooste reveals that he was required to carry a rucksack of polished diamonds, gold, silver coins and large sums of cash while accompanying Liebenberg.

He was also the caretaker of several cellphones that were considered “high value”, owing to the “compromising recordings and messages” they contained.

These phones were often stored, says Jooste, in one of two safes inside a hidden compartment behind a built-in cupboard in a back room of the wine cellar, under the pool area of Liebenberg’s rented house in Aqua Vista Mountain Estate overlooking Bronkhorstspruit Dam.

Liebenberg, says Jooste, has linked himself to far-right organisations including the Boeremag, Suidlanders, Boerelegioen and Bittereinders, and to pro-Zuma ANC factions, anti-Ramaphosa ANC factions and the EFF via Carl Niehaus on the “far left”.

Read more: Jacob Zuma and Louis Liebenberg in Zulu-Boer wonderland

Niehaus has been photographed alongside Liebenberg often, and attended the diamond dealer’s lavish wedding to Dezzie on 15 October 2022.

Jooste says Liebenberg often boasted in public and on social media how close he was to Zuma. “He claims to have a strong alliance with Zuma, the MK party, pro-Zuma factions and the Zulu king. He makes no secret of his utter disdain and even disgust [with] the ANC and the DA parties.

“He is adamant that Ramaphosa be removed from power by any means possible and he was mustering support for this cause as far as he went, not discounting a possible or even an impending coup.”

The “hostile and forcible takeover of government was the general underlying theme of many of the meetings he held with concerned individuals and entities”, Jooste says.

Liebenberg’s money was allegedly used as “pay-off and/or bribe remuneration” to secure buildings such as houses and “other assets” to oversee “security at mines in Namaqualand”, and to liaise with “the SAPS and other law enforcement entities”.

Jooste says he used his contacts and information networks to gain intelligence on anyone Liebenberg considered “an enemy”.

Liebenberg was “pushing heavily for reconciliation between the Zulu nation and the Boers, and thus establishing an alliance of sorts. A big problem for him was that the Afrikaners and the Boere were not united for many reasons.

“He has been successful only to gain the support of a very small proportion of far-right proponents of the anti-Ramaphosa sentiment, making huge financial contributions towards their preparations.”

Since 2021, Jooste was the head of security and a “close protection operative” for Liebenberg and his family. He was also the acting director of Lionsgate Security, a company Liebenberg had been in the process of buying from Jerome Safi, an old blast from the past.

Safi was a one-time associate of Serbian gangster Radovan Krejčíř, currently in prison for drug dealing, attempted murder and kidnapping.

He was also implicated in the murder of German car enthusiast Uwe Gemballa, who was kidnapped at OR Tambo International Airport in 2010. Gemballa was later found murdered – suffocated – at a house rented by Ivan Savov, Krejčíř's business partner.

Safi associated with Lolly Jackson and the underworld crowd that terrorised Gauteng in the early 2000s.

Former president Jacob Zuma and Louis Liebenberg at the Afrikaners Leaders Forum held at The Maslow Time Square in Pretoria on 16 March 2024. (Photo: Emacous Simphiwe Moyo)

The domino cascade

The eventual taking-down of Liebenberg has been drawn out over almost five years of investigation and derailments. It was guided by a multidisciplinary operation led by the Northern Cape Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation Unit.

Liebenberg’s first brush with the authorities took place in July 2021 when about R100-million in bank accounts in his name and that of Kleynhans and Tariomix were provisionally frozen by an order of the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria. The order was overturned in August 2022.

In July 2023, Liebenberg and his company were acquitted in a case in which the State alleged that they were running a Ponzi scheme or dealing in uncut diamonds illegally. Judge Selemeng Mokose said the State had failed to present facts to support this to the court.

Tariomix was placed in final liquidation on 12 April 2024 by the North West Division of the High Court in Mahikeng.

With Jooste’s hot little potato in the works, things are looking bleak for the man who disrupted South African politics, allegedly thieving, corrupting and influencing all the way like a one-man Bell Pottinger. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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South Africa

Buying influence and protection

Compromising recordings

Hostile takeover and planned coup

The domino cascade