Sateesh Isseri, whose home was raided by the Asset Forfeiture Unit, is facing multimillion-rand fraud charges.
|||Durban - Durban businessman, Sateesh Isseri whose uMhlanga home was raided by the Asset Forfeiture Unit yesterday is facing multimillion-rand fraud charges on two fronts.
On Thursday, as members of the unit swooped on his Portland Drive home over allegations that he defrauded the Independent Development Corporation of more than R6 million, his lawyers in Joburg were preparing to fend off a R13m claim laid against him by the SA National Tuberculosis Association (Santa).
On Wednesday, Isseri and his wife, Elizabeth Chetty were arrested on allegations that he defrauded the Independent Development Corporation of more than R6.2m.
They later appeared alongside alleged co-conspirators, Bradley Pillay and Normalarvasagie Reddy.
They were released on R10 000 bail and were expected back in court on June 18.
The couple’s son Rodwin Isseri has been charged with money laundering.
Yesterday the unit, assisted by curator Trevor White, attached the couple’s assets that include six properties, 21 cars and 25 bank accounts.
The couple own the Primed sub-acute hospital group which has clinics located in Newlands West and Sarnia in Durban.
A third clinic is based in East London. According to the Primed website, the clinics offer a diversity of sub-acute rehabilitative and therapeutic services at a level of care between acute care and traditional home nursing.
The police say that in 2007, the couple, through their clinic, submitted an application to the Independent Development Corporation in 2007 for R10m.
In December that year, the Independent Development Corporation approved the application for funding and began transferring the money. Between March and April 2008 the Independent Development Corporation transferred more than R6m into the accounts of Media I-Corp, owned by Pillay, for the supply of medical equipment, including beds.
However, according to court papers, the money was not used to buy medical equipment but instead channelled out of Medi I-Corp’s account into Isseri’s personal accounts and used for other business ventures.
Court papers allege that when an official from the Independent Development Corporation went to inspect the equipment bought for the clinic he was shown among other things Contura C360 specialised hospital beds and the invoices for them.
The official took pictures of the beds and took them to Huntleigh Africa, the sole supplier of Contura beds in the country who confirmed that the beds in the pictures were not Contura beds but “very basic beds”.
According to Huntleigh Africa there were no records of them supplying any beds to either Medi I-Corp or Primed.
Meanwhile, Isseri faces another legal matter in Johannesburg. In December, the South Gauteng High Court handed down a judgment in favour of Santa to recover the R13m Isseri had taken from their account.
Isseri had applied to have the judgment set aside and had until the end of next week to file a founding affidavit, David Feldman, Santa’s lawyer said yesterday.
The drama began in 2011 shortly after Santa - an NGO established in 1947 to combat and treat TB - entered into a management agreement with Isseri.
According to Santa, Isseri approached the organisation with the aim of helping it.
Three months after employing him, Santa discovered that Isseri was trying to “hijack” the organisation and had begun transferring all of the organisation’s property and moveable assets into his name.
Santa obtained a High Court interdict last September to prevent Isseri from representing himself as the association’s representative. In December, the sheriff of the court evicted Isseri from the association’s head office in Bedfordview, east of Joburg.
Isseri did not return calls from the Daily News on Thursday.
Daily News