Nightmare in tropical paradise

A South African businessman's involvement in a proposed deal with Gil devolved into a nightmare in Mauritius.

Gil, a Philippine citizen, has been keeping the Katota development company and more than 100 developers on a line for years with promises that he will provide millions of rands in finance as soon as Katota is able to buy their developments.

André Lategan, a South African-born businessman living and working in Dubai, had a nasty experience after he was unknowingly dragged into a dubious business transaction with Gil and Gil’s sister Dr Elezabeth Samson in Mauritius.

Lategan spoke to Sake24 after a business trip to Mauritius culminated in 16 months' detention on the island.

On August 10 this year a judge in the Mauritius High Court declared him innocent of all charges. The judge also found that the police had not investigated the case fully, with the result that he had not had a fair trial in the first place.

During his incarceration he spent millions on legal representation and his professional integrity had been impugned.

Last year Lategan had been arrested, together with Gil and Samson, on charges of alleged fraud after he acted as intermediary between them and the South African Thuthuka Group. Gil was apparently to have provided finance to this group, which was involved in renewable energy projects.

The aim of the visit to the island was to establish a funding and management company in Mauritius that would enjoy the benefits of the favourable tax structure.

Lategan said the funding company would attempt to obtain and loan facilities from a consortium of banks by means of a bank guarantee provided by Gil. In all, 80% of the funding company would be owned by Gil and 20% by the management company, and the funding company would earn service fees of between 0.5% and 1%.

Lategan and his wife, Rebecca Gernon, a well-known Dubai architect, arrived for their first visit to Mauritius on April 25 last year, to introduce Gil and his sister to Thuthuka as possible funders.

Sake24 is in possession of a document signed by Gil and Samson, which gives Lategan the authority to act on their behalf to find companies looking for finance for humanitarian projects with an investment value of up to €10bn.

From the court papers it appears that Gil wanted to get a $20m loan from Investec Mauritius under false pretences by submitting a fraudulent document to that bank. This document was a bank voucher from Société Générale in Paris, stating that Goldfields Worldwide - which was chaired by Gil, with his sister as deputy chairperson - apparently had a credit balance of €10bn.

Closer investigation revealed that the document had been falsified, and Gil, his sister, Lategan and his wife were arrested for alleged fraud.

Lategan said that if he had in any way suspected that it would be a dubious transaction with counterfeit documents, he would certainly not have taken his wife along. "My wife was released only after a month - and we have three children under the age of five years."

But things were not that easy for Lategan. After a two-month-long court case, during which the prosecutor amended the charge three times, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment together with Gil and Samson.

He appealed and after another eight months was found innocent and allowed to leave the island. Nevertheless, at the airport he was questioned for 40 minutes before he could bid the island a final farewell. "The final impression is lasting," he said.

Meanwhile Gil and Samson have also been released, but it's not clear where they are.

Lategan said the costly lesson he had learned from this experience was that one should not be misled by what potential business partners purported to be. "Gil and Samson instilled confidence because they professed to be believers and interested in humanitarian projects."

His Dubai-based family architectural business - Serendipity by Design - is involved, inter alia, in designing the Palm Jebel Ali development project in Dubai as well as Qatar’s The Pearl. He said the challenge now is to build credibility and restart from scratch.

André Lategan said his involvement in the Mauritius scandal had been minimal. 

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