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Johannesburg - Sensational accusations are flying after a love affair turned sour between a SA Revenue Service (Sars) enforcement boss and a top tobacco lawyer.
Accusations that have reportedly led to inquiries being made by the Hawks, state intelligence and the police.
According to the Sunday Times, things recently turned nasty between Sars employee Johann van Loggerenberg - who has led probes into tax cheats including Julius Malema, Radovan Krejcir and the illegal tobacco industry – and Belinda Walter, a Pretoria-based tobacco lawyer, who used to head the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association.
After Van Loggerenberg broke off their relationship, Walter allegedly laid complaints against him with the police and Sars.
The newspaper states letters and WhatsApp messages in their possession – given to them by Walter - could open a Pandora’s box of dirty tricks used to protect those involved in the tobacco industry.
In the letters, Walter makes damning accusations against Van Loggerenberg. The most damaging of these is that he allegedly revealed confidential taxpayer details to her – a crime under the Tax Act.
Sars has meanwhile established a panel to probe Walter’s allegations and to assess whether any of Van Loggerenberg’s cases have been compromised, reports the newspaper.
Van Loggerenberg, however, claims that Walter is part of a campaign to discredit him.
He said Walter's initial move could have simply been to hurt him after he broke off their relationship, but that she soon became part of a campaign to discredit him.
He said there was a network of rogue agents in Sars and the police who wanted him out.
Not uncommon
Ill-advised romantic trysts have for centuries left a trail of havoc in their aftermath and one such affair is that of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and the then president of the United States Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
Lewinsky, now 40, was in her early twenties when she became the infamous blue dress and beret-wearing muse who engaged in sexual relations with the president and then endured a colossal backlash that nearly drove her to suicide.
After years of being turned away by potential employers and ridiculed online, she recently decided to write her version of events in Vanity Fair magazine.
She said her silence was so complete for nearly a decade that rumours swirled that the Clintons must have paid her off to keep her quiet.
News of the Lewinsky affair broke in 1998 and became an all-consuming scandal that nearly brought down the Clinton presidency.
He was impeached by the House of Representatives that December, but was acquitted by the Senate.
While the Clintons moved on, Lewinsky became an American outcast, even as she came to regret one of the most famous political affairs in US history.
