Coenraad Botha and his wife, Zimbabwean national Charlotte Murove, lodged an application in the Windhoek High Court to have their possessions seized by the police returned.
They are asking the High Court, through their lawyer Sisa Namandje, instructed by Afrika Jantjies, to issue a rule nisi [temporary interdict] upon the two officers, Inspector Joel Shikongo and Warrant Officer Erwin Serogwe, who confiscated their laptops, cellphones and other gadgets upon their arrest.
According to court documents, the couple wants the court to review, correct and set aside the decision by the officers to seize their property. They further want the court to declare the seizure unlawful and invalid.
Botha also cited the inspector general (IG) of the police, the prosecutor general (PG), the magistrate’s court of Windhoek, the Bank of Namibia, and Romeo Nel as interested persons.
Shikongo, Serogwe, the PG and the IG have indicated their intention to oppose the application.
Botha and Murove were arrested at the Buitepos border post near the Botswana/Namibia border on Monday, 13 March, after the police allegedly received intelligence that they were planning to flee the country.
They are facing 64 charges, including 31 counts of conducting banking business without authorisation, one charge of fraud, 31 counts of money laundering, and one count of conducting a Ponzi scheme.
It is alleged that they misrepresented to investors during the periods 2018 and 2022 that they were operating a legitimate business authorised to receive investments from the public, and that such investments would grow with interest, while knowing that they were not authorised to receive any payments from the public.
The State alleges the couple defrauded investors to the tune of close to N$163 million. Their companies, CBI Exchange and Papaya Investments, are under investigation by the police after the Bank of Namibia instituted charges of conducting banking business without authorisation. The duo is currently out on bail.
According to Botha, the devices were seized by the police without their consent, and coercive methods were used to obtain their passwords.
He said there is a presumption of continuous irreparable harm, which is prohibited by Article 16 of the Namibian Constitution, which guarantees privacy. “On the applicant’s devices [cellphones and laptops] is private information not only between me and my wife but also between me and several other parties, including privileged information between applicants and their legal practitioners,” Botha said in an affidavit filed at court.
He went on to say that the officers in question did not apply their minds to this aspect. In fact, he said, they did not care. They were reckless towards our protected fundamental rights to privacy and property.”
The items in question are a MacBook Air, one Ledger NANO Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet Device with millions of dollars, one Grey Hard Drive, one MacBook Air, five assorted USB Flash Drives, and cell phones.
Botha said, the devices are designated as critical infrastructure within the scope of their operations, and contain comprehensive repositories of sensitive information integral to the functions of CBI and its affiliates.
This, he said, includes, but is not limited to, proprietary documents, member data, cryptographic assets, transaction histories, wallet addresses, seed phrases, passwords and records of crypto trading activities. Further, the devices host essential crypto-related products under various applications.
Any compromise, contamination or deletion of data from the devices could result in irreparable harm to their operations, Botha claimed. No judge has been assigned to the matter yet. -rrouth@nepc.com.na