Customs fraud case rolls over to next year

Only two of the eight people charged in connection with a massive alleged customs scam involving Chinese-owned businesses in Namibia appeared in the Windhoek High Court for their latest pretrial hearing yesterday.

Six of the eight accused in the matter are currently in China or Angola, defence lawyer Sisa Namandje informed judge Christie Liebenberg during the hearing.

The two accused who appeared in court are Namibian businessman Laurensius Julius and Chinese business owner Ying Zhang.

Namandje, who represented Ying, told the judge the state has changed its indictment in the matter and provided a fresh indictment to him this week.

Namandje also said he still needs to peruse all of the documentation the state has disclosed to him, before he would be in a position to prepare replies to pretrial questions the state has delivered to the accused.

Liebenberg postponed the case to 18 January, when another pretrial hearing is scheduled to take place.

The latest version of the state’s indictment contains 1 583 charges in total against the eight accused.

The charges consist of 786 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, 786 charges of money laundering, and 11 counts of presenting false documents and making false declarations, which are contraventions of the Customs and Excise Act.

The state is alleging that two corporate entities of which Julius was the sole member or shareholder, Extreme Customs Clearing Services and Organise Freight Services, were the clearing agents for 105 entities that imported goods into Namibia from 2013 to 2016.

The importers paid the equivalent of about N$3,1 billion to suppliers in China for the goods that they imported, but overstated the costs of freight and other charges that had to be paid for the imports in order to inflate the amounts that they remitted from Namibia to China, the state is alleging.

Julius (47) is facing 754 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, 754 counts of money laundering and three charges of presenting false documents and making false declarations.

One of the Chinese accused, Jack Huang, is due to be tried on 102 counts of fraud or theft, 102 charges of money laundering and seven counts of presenting false documents or making false declarations.

In the fraud charges that Huang is facing, the state is alleging that during the period from March 2013 to October 2014 he remitted a total amount of about N$224,7 million from Namibia to China for goods of which the value declared to the customs authorities was US$1,55 million (about N$15,9 million).

The state is alleging that, in addition to vastly inflating the value of goods imported into Namibia to increase the amounts they were remitting to China, the accused under-declared the income of their businesses in Namibia for taxation purposes.

The first arrests in the matter were carried out in December 2016.

Julius and two co-accused who were the first to be arrested were granted bail in an amount of N$1,5 million each after they had been held in custody for a month.

Huang, who was arrested at the start of February 2017, was granted bail in an amount of N$1 million with his first court appearance.

Liebenberg yesterday issued warrants for the arrest of the six accused who were not present in court, but said the warrants would not be executed until the next pretrial hearing on 18 January.