A R28m jewellery heist in 2023 that stripped several Arthur Kaplan Jewellers (AKJ) stores of gold, diamonds and luxury watchesappeared to be a slick inside job. But in the Palm Ridge specialised commercial crimes court this week, the defence flipped the script. The four accused, it was argued, were not criminals but pawns — and the complainant was merely the face of a much darker operation motivated by bad blood going back 22 years.
The accused — former AKJ director Hoosein Mohamed and his former employees Azhar Ismail, Ridwaan Mansoor and Ammaarah Ismail — allegedly looted the stores in 2023after the company went into liquidation. CCTV footage shows the haul being loaded into shopping trolleys and backpacks. The goods have not been recovered, and the four have been charged with theft.
On the stand for the state this week was liquidator Laila Motala, who was flanked by two burly close-protection officers in black suits and wraparound sunglasses. When was asked by the Sunday Times why she required bodyguards, she said her phone had been hacked and she did not feel safe. Motala is the daughter of Enver Motala, a liquidator disbarred after his role in the controversial 2009 collapse of gold mines owned by the Pamodzi Group.
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Her evidence in chief was challenged under cross-examination. The legal team for the defence: “It was your father who was running the show. You were a front.
You were never in control of the business,” defence advocate Mohammed Yusuf Razak told her. Motala objected. According to her testimony, she first learnt of AKJ’s financial distress after Durban businesswoman Veruschka Juggernauth applied for the company to be liquidated, claiming it owed her R1.9m.
She arranged for Mohamed and his co-director, Althea Cloete, to continue running the business while it traded in liquidation. Motala testified that when she asked for payment, Mohamed told her the business had no funds, prompting her to apply to court for permission to raid the homes of Mohamed and his personal assistant, Ammaarah Ismail. But the raid failed to recover anything.
Soon afterwards, surveillance footage showed Ismail and other staff members entering the AKJ head office and three stores — World’s Finest Watches in Sandton’s Nelson Mandela Square, Diamond Walk and Eastgate — over a two-day period. They are seen removing from the shelves and packing away watches and jewellery, allegedly on Ismail’s instructions, which the state says came from Mohamed. AKJ staff members have already testified that they were called in after hours on May 31 and June 1 2023 and instructed to pack up goods and hand them over — allegedly to Mohamed.
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