KWAZULU-NATAL – The Durban Specialised Commercial Crimes Court sentenced Yunus Moolla (61) to 15 years direct imprisonment for multiple charges of fraud, contravention of the Bank Act, contravention of Financial Advisory and Intermediary Service Act as well as money laundering.

During the period of 2013 to 2015, Moolla recruited people to invest in his company called Carmol Distributors. He claimed that his company was dealing in petrol and diesel. Moolla promised investors a monthly profit of 2 to 8 percent. It was discovered that the company was not registered to operate as a financial service institution.

A case of fraud was reported at the Durban North police station and a case docket was allocated to the Durban based Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation for further investigation. Moolla was arrested in 2016 and he appeared in court several times until he was found guilty in November last year.

He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for more than 3700 counts of fraud, five years imprisonment for more than 4000 counts of contravention of Bank Act, five years imprisonment for more than 3700 counts of contravening of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Service Act. The sentence will run concurrently.

Moolla was further sentenced to eight years imprisonment for 11397 counts of money laundering of which three years will run concurrently with ten years of fraud. He will serve 15 years direct imprisonment.

Source: South African Police Service