Gold Mafia: South African Bankers Helping Smuggle Gold and Launder Dirty Money

Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has found that several officials at major South African banks have been enabling gold smuggling gangs to launder millions of dollars of dirty cash in exchange for regular bribes. Documents, ledgers, and interviews with individuals familiar with the matter reveal that employees at Standard Bank, Absa, and Sasfin Bank have been on the payroll of Mohamed Khan, a money launderer for cigarette magnate and smuggler Simon Rudland. These officials were enabling dubious money transfers and removing evidence from the banks’ computer systems, while receiving monthly payments from Khan.

Gold Mafia is a four-part investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) that shows how multiple gangs smuggle gold from Zimbabwe and use it to launder vast amounts of money. The documents obtained by the I-Unit include ledgers, contracts, and emails that show the process Khan and Rudland used. The I-Unit also interviewed Dawood Khan, Mohamed Khan’s brother, who helped forge documents; another of Khan’s former partners, who is referred to as “Jimmy” to protect his identity; and Khan’s ex-wife Wardah Latief.

Khan, who goes by the nickname Mo Dollars, heads PKSA and Salt Asset Management, South Africa-based financial services firms. Among their biggest clients is Zimbabwean millionaire Simon Rudland, owner of Gold Leaf Tobacco, one of Southern Africa’s largest cigarette brands. South African revenue authorities have accused Rudland of evading taxes by selling cigarettes on the black market.

Mo Dollars uses a complicated web of front companies, fake invoices, bribery, and gold to cleanse Rudland’s dirty money. At the centre of this scheme are a set of companies with bank accounts in different parts of the world – Aulion in Dubai, Vantage Leaf in Mauritius, Velmont Valley in Switzerland, and Liberty Gold in the United States.

Using fake invoices and identities, Mo Dollars transfers millions of unaccounted dollars in each transaction to these companies, which are run by Rudland’s partners. PKSA and Salt Asset Management, which send the money, claim to be doing so in lieu of imports of tobacco, clothes, and gold – imports that never actually enter South Africa. Khan bribes influential officers at several South African banks so that no red flags are raised during the transactions.

The bribes range from monthly payments to paid holidays and house renovations, according to Latief and documents accessed by Al Jazeera. Other individuals on Khan’s payroll included Cheryl Simons, who worked in the compliance office, and Brandon Marshall, the head of onboarding new business customers. The ledgers suggest that Lulama Kene, an IT technician, ensured fraudulent transactions were wiped from the bank’s digital system. All of these individuals were employed by Sasfin Bank.

Videsh Seeripat, a relationship manager at ABSA, is listed in the ledgers as receiving $800 a month. His job was to open bank accounts in the name of people who were not present to apply themselves, a mechanism that allowed Mo Dollars to start accounts using fake identities.

At Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank, Vivian Naicker, a senior manager in the compliance division, made sure Khan’s companies received the documentation needed to evade the scrutiny of South Africa’s central bank, according to Dawood Khan. Naicker communicated with Khan using a pseudonym, Vic Grimes, according to emails between the two.

The Gold Mafia investigation highlights a significant problem of money laundering through banks in South Africa. Banking on bribery seems to be a common strategy for money launderers to evade red flags and scrutiny. This revelation casts a shadow on the banking system in South Africa and calls into question the banks’ oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with money laundering