Major Coal Smuggling Syndicate Busted Across Five South African Provinces

In a ground-breaking move, officials from the South African Revenue Service (Sars) reported a major victory against a criminal syndicate involved in rampant coal smuggling. This extensive inter-government operation, carried out across five provinces, was successful in dismantling the network that was instrumental in intensifying the energy crisis and load shedding across the country.

The provinces that served as the backdrop for this operation were Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State, and Limpopo. Sars led the operations based on available data related to the multiple tax crimes allegedly committed by the members of this coal-smuggling syndicate.

This operation comes as a result of the remarkable inter-governmental co-operation and diligent information-sharing under the guidance of the NATJOINTS Energy Safety & Security Priority Committee. The objective of the Committee was to identify and apprehend the criminals responsible for causing economic and personal hardships to the country's citizens.

The operation targeted past employees of Eskom who played a role in procurement fraud, and other individuals involved in diverting high-grade coal. The success of this operation would save the fiscus a whopping R500 million, signifying a prevention of significant revenue loss.

Neesa Moodley, the Personal Finance Editor at Daily Maverick, confirmed that Sars had been probing leads about tax noncompliance when they unearthed the coal-smuggling syndicate. Moodley further highlighted the potential link between the syndicate's action and the maintenance and power breakdowns frequently leading to Eskom's implementation of loadshedding.