Ten people in title deed fraud

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Monday August 13, 2012 00:00

 

Modisane has been suspended from work since July last year in connection with the matter, The Monitor has learnt. His alleged accomplice include a Molepolole Indian man, Deshmuck Khan, who is charged to have posed as the landowner. The case also involves real estate company, Lesedi Associates & Company, which allegedly posed as the plot owner's agent.Court documents reveal that the estate agents as well as their four directors and four shareholders also face the suit.

Interestingly, Rahim Khan, the law firm that carried out the 'botched' transaction on behalf of the Chinese man, Jin Lu, has filed the land fraud suit.Lu only suspected that he may have been sold a fraudulently-acquired plot when the real owner of the plot halted the construction of his P400,000 building.Sir Seretse Khama Airport Police Station stepped in and arrested seven suspects for forgery of the plot's title deed.On Saturday a Rahim Khan lawyer, Dorothy Matiza could not be drawn into confirming or denying that police also interrogated them in their investigations.

She said as a lawyer acting for the plaintiff, she cannot comment on her client's business when the matter is before court.In May this year, four of the seven suspects appeared before Village Magistrate Lenah Oagile Mokibe. However, the prosecution withdrew the case due to insufficient evidence. Investigations are continuing on the matter though.In the papers before court, Lu's lawyers claim that a Sir Seretse Khama Airport Police Station investigation in August last year found that Khan was never the registered owner of the Block 8 plot, Lot 34931. It charges that the title deed was a fraudulent document. 

The police investigations also revealed that Khan, Edward Kebonyemodisa of Lesedi Associates, as well as Modisane and four others had jointly made the title deed with the intention to induce Lu to pop out money for it.The court papers accuse the syndicate of working together with Modisane, who 'used and abused his position to prepare and endorse the false Deed of Fixed Period State Grant'.  The documents say the syndicate also made fraudulent stamps which were passed off as genuine stamps used upon registration of genuine title deeds.At the time the plot owner, Moore Moffat, halted developments at the Block 8 plot, P180,000 had already been paid into the real estate agents' account, conveyancers who concluded the transaction say.

The rest of the money, according to the contract, was to be paid at a later stage.Besides seeking the High Court to decide what to do with the fraudsters, Lu wants all the 10 fraudsters who benefitted from the P180,000 paid into the real estate agents' account, to pay him back with 15 percent interest, as well as re-imburse him for labour and construction expenses he incurred before he was halted by the real owner of the plot in March last year.Kanjabanga Attorneys is acting for Khan while Lesedi Estates Company and its four directors are represented by Masire Mthimkhulu Attorneys. Modisane is represented by Akhell & Associates. Justice Key Dingake hears the case today.