Two former SA Revenue Service (Sars) customs auditors will spend three years in jail for attempting to solicit a bribe from a prominent KwaZulu-Natal businessman “to make his tax problems disappear”.
Pranesh Maharaj and Reuben Moodley were both caught red-handed with cash bribes of R100,000 in brown envelopes during a police operation in March last year.
The two men, who both resigned from Sars during a disciplinary hearing last year, were sentenced in the Durban Regional Court on Thursday last week.
The court also sentenced them to an additional two years’ imprisonment, conditionally suspended for five years.
“The two auditors acknowledged that they had issued a notice to a well-known KwaZulu-Natal businessman in February 2018, advising him of an imminent audit of companies where he was a director.
“During a follow-up meeting, they solicited a bribe of R200,000 from him ‘to make his tax problems
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