The South African Revenue Service and other government agencies said they disrupted a coal smuggling syndicate operating across five of the country’s nine provinces.
The search-and-seizure operation targeted former employees of state power utility Eskom Holdings “who facilitated procurement fraud,” the agencies said in a statement on Thursday.
High-grade coal being trucked to Eskom power plants is diverted to private coal yards where it is replaced with lower quality coal, the agencies said, adding the high-grade coal is then exported. The suspects defrauded the tax collector of more than R500-million, they said.