By Chrispin Inambao
WINDHOEK
The long arm of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday finally caught up and seized fruit merchant Shamil Dirk, over allegations that he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes so that he could evade duty on truckloads of fruit.
This elaborate fraud scheme that enriched a chief of customs dates back to 2001.
And by the time it was unearthed early this year, Dirk’s company, Dirk Fruit, reportedly paid bribes exceeding N$769 200 to the suspended customs chief at the Noordoewer border post, Stephanus Owoseb, whose case is pending before the court.
Yesterday, the ACC Director Paulus Noa revealed: “This afternoon we arrested the businessman Shamil Dirk. He is the owner of Dirk Fruit,” adding that the charges against the 33-year-old suspect are in connection with over N$769 200 that he allegedly paid in bribes to the suspended customs chief who has a court date on June 29 2007.
“Obviously this is bribery, because he (Dirk) has been depositing money into the account of a small child of someone working at Noordoewer,” he said in reference to Owoseb.
“He was arrested here in Windhoek and he will probably appear at the magistrate’s court tomorrow,” Noa said in response to a question on where the arrest of Dirk occurred.
Depending on how the probe develops, he could not rule out the possibility of more suspects being arrested on charges related to this white-collar crime, the largest of its kind.
“We have piles of documents from the bank and other crucial information that we need. So I can say we have made advanced progress on this case,” narrated the ACC boss.
It appears ACC investigators painstakingly connected the dots involving an unscrupulous customs chief on the one hand and a fruit importer intent on “maximizing” profit on the other, and reached the obvious conclusion.
What transpired from the preliminary information availed to New Era was the suspicion that Owoseb deliberately erased data with regard to the actual amount of fruit that Dirk imported from South Africa to Namibian destinations.
The ACC also suspects he opened a bank account using the particulars of his 12-year-old son, and that this front bank account was staffed with bribes by Dirk.
After the businessman paid the bribes, his truck was waved through the Noordoewer border post with its fruits destined for a distribution point in the north.
During a brief period around the festive season of 2001, at least N$5 000 was paid into the questionable account that Owoseb purportedly opened for his minor son.
And from January 2, 2002 these deposits increased gradually from N$5 000 to N$10 000 per single bank transaction. And a week before Christmas day in 2003, N$17 000 was deposited into this account by the fruit merchant, according to bank statements.
Between January 2002 and December 2003, unidentified deposits traced to Dirk Fruit into this account amounted to N$236 503. And during the period January 2004 to December 2004 the suspended customs and excise chief pocketed a princely N$327 839 in alleged bribes, and these figures are just provisional as the ACC investigation is not yet complete.