- The ruse of “money laundering” continues
- At the expense of hundreds of jobs and Lesotho’s already comatose economy
- And a further M1 billion in investment
By Investigations Desk
The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO)’s handling of the M280 million Platcorp Holdings Limited (Platcorp) alleged money laundering case is fast degenerating into a farce.
This amid widespread reports that the anti-graft body is now scrounging for evidence in Kenya to back its unauthentic claims that the humungous investment was “laundered” into Lesotho in the first instance and must therefore be forfeited to the state.
Unfortunately for the DCEO and the Crown, there is no iota of evidence in Kenya to back these bogus claims, the Lesotho Times can authoritatively state. Platcorp was in fact cleared by the Kenyan authorities after initial suspicions of alleged wrongdoing involving a small amount of US$ 1 million were proved baseless (see sidebar story).
The DCEO’s boss, Knorx Molelle, reportedly went to Kenya several weeks ago to try and get evidence to back his bid to have Platcorp’s investment forfeited to the state.
If the trip indeed happened, then it would have been at best a wild goose chase and at worst, an expensive fishing expedition for the State.
The DCEO has been eager to establish the veracity of a press report in Kenya in 2022 that Kenyan authorities had frozen US$1 million (about M19 million) belonging to Platcorp on suspicions that correct procedure to transfer money to South Africa were not followed. The money, that was originally loaned by PlatCorp from European institutions such as pension funds to be invested in Africa, ultimately went from one subsidiary to another. The definition of money laundering is disguising financial assets so they can be used without detection of the illegal activity that produced them. As far as this newspaper could establish, all money from Europe has clear transparent paper trail from one country’s bank to another, and the legally obtained money never lost its character.
The amount allegedly meant for onward transmission to South Africa and then possibly to Lesotho to fund Platcorp’s Maseru subsidiary, Platinum Credit, in at the time when people were starving during Covid, never ended up in Lesotho.
If the report had turned out to be true, the DCEO had hoped to use it to back its claims that the entire M280 million Platcorp poured into Lesotho represented “proceeds of crime” and should therefore be forfeited to the state. That is not to be nonetheless.
The Facts
The Kenyan Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) indeed obtained a temporary High Court order to freeze US$ 1 million (about 115 million Kenyan Shillings) of Platcorp money in 2022.
But after the origins of the money were fully explained and the matter had gone through due legal process, Platcorp was cleared. The “money laundering” allegations were found to have no scintilla of truth. They had no leg to stand on (see sidebar story for the full facts). Platcorp was wholly cleared and proceeded with its businesses. The ARA obtained a consensual order from the Kenyan High Court to lift the freezing order.
So if the DCEO is now hoping for some “Mombasa magic” to try and back up its “money laundering” hoax, it will likely be disappointed. It will not find any in Kenya or elsewhere. Suffice to say the fishing expedition to get evidence continues at the expense of hundreds of jobs that have already been lost and a potential further M1 billion investment that Platcorp has now put-on hold and will likely no longer materialize if the witch-hunt against the company continues.
Again, as the Lesotho Times has repeatedly warned, the onslaught against Platcorp, a credible international financial conglomerate, is all happening at the expense of Lesotho’s already shattered reputation as a trustworthy and safe foreign investment destination, particularly in the wake of debilitating violent crime levels and the promulgation of the Business Licensing Regulations, 2021, banning foreigners from investing and operating in a whopping 46 business sectors. The racial and patently xenophobic undertones that are implicit in the onslaught against Platcorp – that it is a mere “money-laundering” project by a bunch of white men using Lesotho to “clean dirty money” and then retrieve it back for use elsewhere, is only entrenching the narrative that Lesotho has become unwelcome for foreign investors. This is all betraying Prime Minister Sam Matekane’s spirited ambitions to create jobs and improve the lives of Basotho by attracting serious and monied foreign investors.
Real Culprits
The Lesotho Times first broke the Platinum Credit story in a series of articles in July 2023 (see Volumes 16, Issues 14, 15 and 16). We explained in our series that the whole Platcorp saga revolved around a nefarious plot hatched by a local “businesswoman”, Motena Lishea, to defraud Platcorp of the whooping M280 million it had put into Lesotho and entrusted her to manage on the basis of deferred share transfer agreements.
Lishea had entered into a partnership with Platcorp through her micro-lending licence under a company called Wazzah, later renamed Platinum Credit in May 2020. Wazzah, a dormant company had a financial services licence from the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL). To save time on applying for a completely new micro-lending licence, it made sense for Platcorp to invest and obtain the shareholding through and in Wazzah to take advantage of the increasing need for credit as people lost their jobs and wanted access to finance to start their own businesses to survive the debilitating impacts of Covid. Platcorp was also misled by Lishea about the requirements for a new licence. PlatCorp appreciated that things were not normal anywhere in the world due to the frequent Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions. CBL staff were working from home. It’s thus a false narrative that Lishea was a mere front. She was a full stakeholder with control over Platinum Credit’s operations on the basis of authentic deferred share transfer agreements.
Greed
Perhaps due to greed and covetousness, and to bankroll the lavish lifestyle she suddenly found herself enjoying after getting a well monied investor, Lishea sniffed she could deprive Platcorp of its entire investment and keep it all to herself. She then stalled in consummating the deferred share transfer agreements which would have seen Platcorp taking ownership and control of its investment in Platinum Credit while she became a senior employee. She had never invested any money into the business, except her licence. She in fact had struggled to get investment to fund Wazzah until she landed on the Platcorp “bonanza”. Her deal with Platcorp would still have made her significantly wealthy. But avarice set in and she decided she wanted more.
The travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic had already made it impossible for the directors of Platcorp to visit Lesotho to finalise ownership of their investment. Regulatory authorities did not make it any easier for Platcorp to take ownership of its investment either once the Covid-19 crisis had subsided and conditions had returned to normal. This was because Lishea had started working the system to deprive her partners by seeking a route to nullify the deferred share sale agreements while retaining the money for the benefit of herself and whoever else would have helped her in accomplishing her mission.
If the plot succeeded, she had promised an array of officials (we have their names and will publish them in due course) that the M280 million would be used to fund a wholly locally owned private commercial bank. Considering that the only indigenous bank, Lesotho Post Bank, had a net asset value of about M200 million as per its last financials, Lishea’s bank would have automatically taken the top spot as a 100 percent owned Basotho bank. There is nothing wrong with having a 100 percent locally owned private commercial bank. Except that her scheme to fund it constituted the real money laundering effort that her partners are now being accused of.
The finality that never was
Her actions had kick-started a series of legal battles which finally resulted in Judge Moroke Mokhesi’s ruling that the M280 million be returned to Platcorp via its lawyers, Webber Newdigate (see Lesotho Times Vol 17 Issue 28)
But if Platcorp had hoped this was the finale to its efforts to recover its investment, it was not to be. In fact, it was just the beginning of a new battle.
Standard Bank had moved an initial M210 million into Webber Newdigate’s Trust Account after Judge Mokhesi’s ruling. Lesotho Post Bank, which was holding another M60 million, and whose now suspended Managing Director, Molefi Leghaoe, had allegedly looked the other way whilst Lishea looted Platinum Credit money at that bank, did not immediately release the money in line with Judge Mokhesi’s ruling, because it ostensibly wanted the DCEO’s say so first.
As Webber Newdigate where in the process of transferring the initial M210 million back to Platcorp in South Africa, the DCEO, which had curiously sat on the case for 18 months, sprang into action. It obtained an ex-parte order from Judge Masefaro Mahase, essentially reversing Judge Mokhesi’s order to have the money sent back to Platcorp. The DCEO conveniently did so without citing Platcorp. Now they can’t repatriate it back and pay back to their own funders, because they are alleged to have common purpose with the very person who defrauded them.
Standard Lesotho Bank was compelled to retake the money from Webber Newdigate’s account and restore it to Platinum Credit amid threats to its legal head, Pheta Setlojoane, that he would be arrested unless he ensured the return of the money to Platinum.
In obtaining the ex-parte order from judge Mahase, the DCEO had also complained that it had not been cited, when Judge Mokhesi’s order was issued. Curiously, the DCEO had known about all the legal proceedings by Platcorp to recover its investment and was being repeatedly coaxed by Webber Newdigate to have the initial fraud case against Lishea finalised. In the summons issued by PlatCorp’s lawyers in 2022, PlatCorp showed that more than R250 million was paid from another independent subsidiary’s bank in South Africa to a Lesotho bank. Both banks are regulated. There was thus no question of money laundering as the banks would not allow such huge amounts to be shifted without close examination of the sources. The M210 million attached would not even have been enough to repay the capital indirectly loaned from Europe which Platcorp fought for in the court of Lesotho and won.
Lishea Theft
When the DCEO initially got an order freezing Platinum Credit accounts with different banks in 2021, it was all at the behest of Platcorp (See Lesotho Times Issue 16 Vol 14 – 6 July 2023).
Platcorp had reported Lishea to the DCEO after it established that she had stolen millions from Platinum Credit’s accounts at First National Bank (FNB) which Platcorp managed to reverse with a court order and latter Post Bank. It was on the basis of Platcorp’s complaint that the DCEO had obtained the search and seizure warrants to freeze Platinum Credit’s accounts across the banking sector. Lishea had made millions of withdrawals from Platinum’s accounts at FNB to fund her lavish lifestyle with her lawyer, Advocate Tsenase Tsenase, whom she had appointed as Platinum Credit’s legal advisor or corporate secretary. Tsenase was to later transmogrify into Lishea’s boyfriend and finally husband.
Sensing impropriety with the withdrawals and after she failed to meet the bank’s KYC (Know Your Customer) requests, FNB shut down all Platinum Credit accounts as well as Lishea’s own personal accounts. The money was then moved to Standard Bank in terms of a court order. If there had been any legitimate suspicions of money laundering, this transfer from one big bank to another would never have happened.
Still Lishea was able to access part of the millions still held at Post Bank, after its now suspended Managing Director, Leqhaoe, failed to enforce the DCEO’s freezing order. Some money was withdrawn in cash, the other was paid directly to herself under the disguise of “office expenses”.
No action
After successfully freezing the Platinum’s accounts in lieu of Platcorp’s fraud allegations against Lishea, the DCEO mysteriously sat on the case for close to 18 months until Platcorp won the case to regain its money. This was despite the DCEO being furnished with evidence that Lishea was indeed a fraud alongside her lover, Tsenase and they were continuing with their looting spree, splurging on mansions, expensive cars and exotic holidays. Had the DCEO done its work, and held Lishea and Tsenase accountable, Platinum Credit would most certainly have regained its investment, saved at least 200 jobs and invested more. The company had planned to pour in another M1 billion and make Platinum the biggest micro lender in the country. All that could not happen because it became apparent that Lishea had been busy at work manipulating authorities to keep the money.
Platcorp Officers
The DCEO’s subsequent “arrest” of Lishea and Tsenase last month after an 18-month lull was thus seen as a ruse. It was no longer about the theft and fraud allegations against the two. But the specious allegations that Platcorp directors and officers had laundered the M280 million into Lesotho with Lishea and Tsenase as mere fronts. This has raised the spectre that the two would be let off the hook, or turned into state witness as part of a scheme, now involving many influentials, to steal the Platcorp money.
This has all resulted in the gratuitous statements and insults being bandied against these Platcorp directors and officers that they are “money launderers”.
Needless to mention that not a shred of evidence has been proffered in any of the DCEO court papers filed hitherto nor in any of the media reports flaunting the allegations. Some have suggested bank statements point to money laundering. They don’t explain how. The frequent movement of money in financial channels of micro-lending institutions is perfectly normal.
Kenya ‘angle’
A press report suggested last week that DCEO director Molelle had weeks ago left Lesotho on a “hastily planned” trip to Kenya on a mission “to gather more evidence of the alleged laundering of M270 million in Lesotho by Platcorp Holdings, the Mauritian based company claiming to own Lesotho’s Platinum Credit”.
As stated above, such a trip would be a wild goose chase. There is no evidence of any money laundering by Platcorp in Kenya.
If he indeed travelled, he would have discovered that the “money laundering” allegation is a castle built on piles of sand (see sidebar story).
