[miningmx.com] — ALLEGED company hijacker and diamond thief Dennis van Kerrebroeck is also being investigated for orchestrating the kidnapping of Mashudu Nengwenda, the CEO of the company he allegedly tried to hijack.
Van Kerrebroeck appeared on Thursday in the Hopetown Magistrate’s Court on a charge of diamond theft. Magistrate Jacques Coetzee told Miningmx that the case was transferred to the Randburg Regional Court, where Van Kerrebroeck would again appear on March 24. He remains in custody.
Pretoria police spokesperson Warrant Officer Duane Lightfoot has confirmed that Nengwenda laid a charge of kidnapping in November. This was followed by a charge of fraud, related to the alleged hijacking of Ngwenda Gold, in February.
The alleged kidnapping took place early October, soon after the directors of Ngwenda Gold informed Van Kerrebroeck they were no longer interested in selling a stake in the company to the Canadian citizen.
According to Ngwenda Gold director Bob Jansen, the company was approached by Van Kerrebroeck in April for a possible deal. The parties agreed to cooperate, with Van Kerrebroeck given until the end of September to comply with certain conditions.
Ngwenda Gold was earlier granted prospecting rights for gold on several farms in the Free State close to Bothaville and Odendaalsrus.
Following Van Kerrebroeck’s failure to comply with the conditions, according to Jansen, the Canadian was informed that Ngwenda regarded the transaction as null and void and would pursue transactions with other interested parties.
Nengwenda told Miningmx he was approached by five men, one of whom was armed, at a car wash business he owned in Pretoria West on the same day the company notified Van Kerrebroeck about the decision to terminate the agreement.
The men forced him to accompany them to Ngwenda Gold’s offices in Hatfield, also in Pretoria, where they demanded Nengwenda sign documents showing that he relinquished ownership, and proof of payment as well as a board resolution in which the sale to Van Kerrebroeck was approved. The men also wanted all original share certificates and a share register.
Nengwenda managed to alert the police about the incident, who overpowered the men at the office. However, the police refused to arrest any of the men, according to Nengwenda, who was instructed to lay a charge at a police station.
“When I analyse everything that happened, it is now clear to me that he planned from the beginning to commit this thing (the hijacking of Ngwenda Gold),’ said Nengwenda. “He just went through the motions of pretending he wanted a deal so that he could get access to our records and information about our asset.’
Van Kerrebroeck was arrested by the police on February 27 in connection with the theft of a diamond valued at about R58m in Hopetown during 2008.
The New York Post newspaper reported on July 15 last year that Van Kerrebroeck allegedly stole a 143 carat rough diamond mined by Higgs Diamonds in South Africa when it was imported into the United States for sale. According to the article, the diamond was valued at $3.3m, about R23m.
On February 25, the South Gauteng High Court ruled that Van Kerrebroeck had not been validly appointed as a director of Ngwenda Gold, following Nengwenda, Jansen and another executive’s discovery that they had been replaced as the directors of the company by the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office on January 13.
