#Spygate Arthur Fraser busted attempting to frame the President on money laundering charges

FACTS as they say, can be troublesome. When lies form the basis for allegations, one simple fact can make a world of difference. Take the latest interview with businessman Hazim Mustafa. In a SkyNews exclusive, he relates how he declared $600 000 USD when he arrived in South Africa, and then proceeded to pay $480 000 for some bulls ‘for which he has a receipt’.

That’s right, the money was declared at customs and the purchase occurred whilst the President was away. Phala Phala itself appears to be owned by a trust. Instead of banking the money, it seems staff decided to make use of the opportunity to stage a theft.

The result isn’t all that difficult to understand. Phala Phala staff proceed to hide the money in a place where it can easily be found by criminals who then broke into the ranch on camera, going directly to the funds. The money disappears, the President returns and reports the crime to a Police General, Major-General Wally Rhoode, who has been co-opted to the National Executive. The rest of the story is less sanguine and is incredibly problematic.

Head of Presidential Security of course, is none other than Rhoode, who is currently under suspension pending an investigation, and this following his own clumsy investigation and sloppy handling of the affair. There does seem to be an attempt to hush-up the result, perhaps to avoid security being implicated in the theft, or merely to protect national security? There may yet be outstanding issues to do with influence-peddling and tax evasion?

Enter Arthur Fraser, a rogue intelligence agent (see here and here), who it appears is still receiving intelligence briefings despite being implicated in large-scale larceny, abuse of intelligence resources, which include allegations of missing money running into millions from the Intelligence budget and the compromising of national security.

Fraser relates that merely because of ‘his position as former Director-General of Intelligence’ under Jacob Zuma, his ‘advice is regularly sought in relation to security and intelligence matters’ and that ‘unsolicited information is regularly brought to his attention by various people and entities‘ . Though he does not provide any further details, Fraser proceeds to impugn the Intelligence and Security Cluster surrounding the President.

It is no coincidence that Fraser is named in Volume 6 of the Zondo Report, into allegations of state capture, implicating him in major intelligence breaches. He thus concocts a rather bizarre plot in order to save his own skin, and also that of his former boss Jacob Zuma.

At first he alleges the President failed to report the theft and is laundering an undisclosed amount of money, the ‘quantum of which is speculated to be in the region of $4 million to $8 million’. None of which involves tax evasion and influence-peddling. The sheer bulk alone is problematic due to the weight of foreign exchange which is alleged to have been ‘hidden in furniture’, and which Fraser avers now constitutes a ‘prima facie case of money laundering’.

All the allegations are spun from the events at Phala Phala. Then he adds additional narrative via a supplement that appears to be cut-and-pasted right out of the Zondo Report. Instead of Gupta’s and the events surrounding Waterkloof Airforce Base, (where Fraser failed to report any of the resulting offences named by Justice Zondo), he now seeks to deflect the nation’s attention towards ‘Waterkloof Dollars’ arriving from distant lands such as Sudan in the form of bribes.

Problem with this narrative, aside from the fact that Fraser is no longer Director-General of Intelligence where he failed to protect the Republic from state capture — if the money has been declared at customs, it can’t be said to have been laundered. If the transaction is legitimate, and customs corroborate Mustafa’s version of events. It is basically chalk and cheese, and so lights out for Fraser. You’re busted.

At very least he has egg on his face — If Fraser was indeed in receipt of intelligence briefings on the matter (unsolicited or not), he would surely know the President has an alibi? But what if he was (or not), and then still wished to use the information for political gain? His Affidavit cannot simply be introduced on the basis of hearsay and speculation. And it cannot be put to an open court as if he were still DG operating under the Secrecy Act? It may be a miscalculation on his part, but more likely, he has calculated that the damage caused by his allegations would be sufficient for him to reach his own objectives, which appear to be anything but lawful.

Fraser at last count, was alleging via the daily press that he had “refused a R50 million offer from a Cape Town underworld boss to make the Phala Phala case against President Cyril Ramaphosa “go away”.’

Are we to believe there are now 20 assassins hiding under the Sofa?

Fraser’s Affidavit’s are therefore an exercise in hyperbole, purposeful exaggeration. Expect these allegations to get wilder and wilder. All are calculated to scandalise and shift the blame away from a culprit responsible for a massive failure of intelligence during the period of state capture.

Questions remain — why has Fraser not been arrested given the seriousness of the crimes to which he is accused in Volume 6 of the Zondo Report?

Did the President declare his capital gains and losses resulting from the crime, and was he entitled to Presidential Security detail at Phala Phala?

Did Rhoode go beyond the call of duty, and to what extant is Fraser involved?

Falsely accusing another person of a crime, is also a crime. Providing false testimony in an Affidavit is, yep, a crime.

This isn’t , it’s another as in the Information Scandal.

SEE: Zondo vs Ngcobo – the strange tale of two Presidential corruption reports #Spygate

SEE: Former Spy Boss Arthur Fraser attempts court challenge of Zondo Report

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Sisulu steps in the proverbial ‘kakka’

FOR TWENTY years Imelda Marcos, the First Lady of the Philippines and her husband Ferdinand Marcos stole billions from the Filipino people, before they were convicted after mass protests that would later become known as the ‘People Power Revolution’. Imelda Marcos’s luxury shoe collection is said to have run into the range of thousands of branded items.

Similarly, South Africa’s ruling party has presided over state capture and massive looting under successive administrations. The party is implicated in the Zondo Report, the opening volume of which has dealt a massive blow to the credibility of the ANC, whilst MP Lindiwe Sisulu, faces opprobrium and censure from the country’s justice system for comments deflecting attention away from the findings.

In a move calculated to take the wind out of the sails of Zondo Commission by weaponising poverty to defend her position and authority, Sisulu went on the offensive this week, accusing the judiciary of being ‘mentally colonised’ and attacking the acting chief justice, and the ‘rule of law’, which she claims is merely a tool of neoliberalism.

The timing is significant and the result incredibly rich, considering the Sisulu’s are the main beneficiaries of a number of deals with the previous regime. Deals which resulted in the first black empowermenti firm, the creation of NAIL, and all leading to a round of state capture outlined here.

That there exists a link between state capture under Zuma, and the previous period of state capture under the National party, is clear and it would be remiss of me to omit to mention that this connection was neither the strict mandate nor the subject of the Zondo Commission, which focused primarily on the intrigues of the Guptas, SAA, Transnet, Nkandla and so on.

Given the extent of the looting, it was only a matter of time before the entire corrupt enterprise involving the siphoning off of state funds, under the guise of ANC deployment of cadres to the corporate sector, positioning of political representatives within the commanding heights of the economy, and attempts to rig legal proceedings, began to unravel, in one big awkward mess. A bewildering array of graft allegations has resulted in unprecedented attacks against democratic institutions becoming the order of the day, and include the torching of the national assembly by persons known and unknown.

Instead of empowering ordinary South Africans and seeking to move our country forward under democratic rule, it turns out that the inner circle of the ANC merely wished to step into the boots of the National Party, gaining a seat at the table of crookedness as it were. One can no longer remain silent in the face of thinly veiled attempts to disguise the result as a ‘people’s revolution’ or to sugar-coat the consequences as ‘radicalism’ or ‘opposition to capital’.

Like the removal of the Marcos Gang in the Philipines, it is going to take a lot more than a simple ‘democratic revolution’ to deal with the consequences. SA desperately needs its own Corazon Aquino, the  prominent figure of the 1986 Philippines Revolt, which ended the two-decade rule of President Ferdinand Marcos.

As I write this piece, government-sponsored propagandists continue to scapegoat our constitutional democracy alongside the justice system instead of answering the question, why it is that the ruling party has failed the people of this country?

History buffs may find another comparison, that of Angola’s Isabel dos Santos equally enlightening.

Burning down the house, Zondo, Tutu, Mafe

NO SOONER had Desmond Tutu been given a rousing sendoff and funeral, when our Parliament was set ablaze, an inferno of epic proportions. This two days before the handover of volume one of the Zondo Report. It is a poignant, tragic moment in our nation’s history. Coming hot on the heels of the events of last July which saw KZN go up in flames after a failed insurrection launched by former president Jacob Zuma. It was a year which was meant to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Constitution.

I attended the inaugural signing of the foundation document by the first constituent assembly. A moment which ushered in the first chapter of our young democracy, and presided over by a government of national unity. It is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of what has occurred under an embattled, diminished party, beset by factionalism, and the stench of corruption. It could not get any worse, if one launched a coup d’état of one’s own or realised the list of names implicated in state capture, include the very same individuals who in all likelihood will benefit from the massive distraction caused by the torching of the National Assembly.

Enter the proverbial scapegoat, Zandile Christmas Mafe, a man set to take responsibility for every sin committed by the ruling party in a vacuum caused by what appears to be Presidential immunity. Charges include arson, possession of stolen goods, and a growing number of allegations which could prove to be interesting from the perspective of anyone wanting to purchase a Ninja kitbag.

Not only is the Speaker and Secretary of Parliament blatantly misdirecting our attention from the turned off sprinkler systems, the failed alarms and lack of CTV monitoring, but we are now lead to believe, (this by our so-called authorities), that Mafe was carrying explosives. Next I suspect we will wake to find that Mafe is implicated in a plot to destroy the Republic in favour of the formation of Greater Pongololand, in a twisted narrative that will disguise the fact that one need look no further than Nkandla for the source of our current difficulties as a nation.

While it is clear that South Africa dodged a bullet in July, the Zuma counter-revolutionary shit-show is by no means over. We have a failed justice system to thank, one that is either incapable or unwilling to deal with the treasonous mastermind, the sinister force behind what should really be termed, the Anti-Zondo insurrection committee — those who have certainly attempted to turn this beautiful country into a feeble, tribalist homeland, merely in order to escape the implications of being named as the protagonists behind state capture.

It may be reassuring to some that Judge Zondo has recommended an ‘independent corruption agency’, free of party manipulation and executive control, but isn’t this what the Scorpions were supposed to be doing before they became the so-called Hawks?

Yet another government agency, costing millions which could turn out to be equally incapable of investigating a tuck shop heist even they are given specials powers to accomplish the task? This while the more troubling findings of the Zondo commission are steadily buried under a mountain of information and bluster, as the robust political discourse that passes for our nation’s realpolitiek takes its course?

Only time can tell whether our democratic, multi-party system will prevail over those who wish nothing more than to assert themselves as our ‘leaders in perpetuity’, who desire no less than the destruction of parliamentary authority — the end of democracy and the market economy, and its replacement by feudalism and dictatorship, all under the guise of a command economy.

Yes, we will rebuild, recover and restore our fledgling democracy, but only if the perpetrators of crimes against the state are dealt with post haste.

Time for patriots to assist the police in their duties?

SEE: Or Else, Dr Nie and the coming of the Warlords