Shoprite chair wants cash back

Johannesburg - The seizure of £600 000 (about R7m) in UK bank notes from Christo Wiese by customs officials at Heathrow airport was "a bit of a joke," the Shoprite Holdings [JSE:SHP] chairperson said on Monday.

This followed a story posted earlier on the Moneyweb site that UK customs had confiscated the money from Wiese in April 2009.

UK customs stipulates that if you are arriving in the UK from a country outside the European Union (EU), or you're leaving the UK to travel directly to a country outside the EU, you must declare any cash of €10 000 or more (or its equivalent in other currencies) to customs officers.

Wiese, however, told Sapa he was carrying the money from his safety deposit box in London to his safety deposit box in Luxembourg and that both countries were EU members.

"If I had the money in a bank it could have been transferred," he added.

He said the matter was in the hands of his UK lawyers and that a hearing regarding the refund of his money would take place in November.

"I was taking the money to Luxembourg as I wanted to start trading again after the banking crisis." Wiese said.

He added that the matter was "a bureaucratic bungle" and that customs had given him no reason for the seizure of his funds.

"But my lawyers don't want me to conduct a hearing in the media," Wiese said.

Asked if it was prudent to carry such large sums of cash about, Wiese explained that he was used to dealing with big amounts of money as thirty years ago, he had been in the diamond business.

"But I'm positive that I'll get the money back," he said.

He confirmed that he was never arrested.

"They told me I could go, as long as I left the money."

- Sapa