Billy Rautenbach

In November 1999, after investigating Rautenbach for about two years, South African law enforcement conducted a raid on Rautenbach's Johannesburg home and private aircraft, as well as the Johannesburg offices of Wheels of Africa.[24][25] Following the raid, and amid financial strain in his southern African business interests,[14][15] Rautenbach fled South Africa.[3] On 19 September 2000, Rautenbach's South African assets, worth at least R40 million, were seized by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).[6] He faced charges for crimes he had allegedly committed while at Hyundai, including numerous charges of fraud and theft.[26][6][27] In March 2007, South African authorities filed for his extradition from Zimbabwe.[7][26] On 18 September 2009, Rautenbach handed himself over to the NPA. Facing 326 charges of fraud, he pleaded guilty[28] on behalf of one of his companies, SA Botswana Hauliers – though he did not personally admit liability[16] – and, in a plea bargain, agreed to pay a fine of R40 million.[14][29]

Rautenbach launched a legal challenge against the validity of the 1999 raids, and of the evidence seized in the process, with the Constitutional Court ultimately ruling against him.[30] In court papers, the state claimed that Rautenbach was linked to the murder of Yong Koo Kwon of Daewoo Motors, who had been shot dead in his car in Johannesburg in February 1999.[4][31] Rautenbach emphatically denied any involvement in the murder, and described the allegations as a "witch-hunt."[32] No charges were ever laid against Rautenbach, and three other men were charged with the murder in 2006.[33]

Two months after striking the 2009 plea bargain with the NPA, Rautenberg testified for the prosecution in the corruption trial of Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service.[34] Selebi was accused of accepting bribes from Rautenbach and two other businessmen.[35] During the trial, convicted drug smuggler Glen Agliotti testified that Selebi had been asked to intervene in NPA and South African Revenue Service investigations into Rautenbach, to cancel Rautenbach's arrest warrant, and to provide information about whether Rautenbach was wanted by Interpol, of which Selebi was president.[36] Agliotti said, and Rautenbach confirmed,[34] that Rautenbach paid $100 000 to Agliotti, who channelled $30 000 to Selebi.[37]

Critics alleged that Rautenbach had been appointed to Gécamines, the Congolese state-owned mining company, at the request of the Zimbabwean ruling party, ZANU-PF – indeed, in 1999 the Guardian called the existence of such an arrangement "a widespread assumption in diplomatic circles."[4] The allegation, as made by a United Nations panel in 2001, was that Rautenbach had been appointed to Gécamines to help channel mining profits from the DRC to the ZANU-PF regime, in exchange for Zimbabwean military support for Kabila's forces in the Second Congo War.[38][3][9][10] In 1999, Rautenbach denied the allegations, saying that he had never met Robert Mugabe.[4] He was reportedly an associate of ZANU-PF government minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who became president in 2018.[4][5][16][39]

In 2008, Camec was involved in a controversial deal, in which, through the purchase of another company, it provided a $100 million payment – referred to as a loan – in exchange for the acquisition of Zimbabwean platinum assets, previously owned by Anglo American Platinum, which the Zimbabwean government had taken control of.[40][41] The payment was financed with capital raised primarily from the American hedge fund Och-Ziff, and was reportedly used by ZANU-PF to fund its repressive 2008 election campaign.[41][42] Shortly afterwards, in October 2008, the American embassy in Zimbabwe investigated Rautenbach for his involvement in off-the-book sales of vehicles to the Zimbabwean government.[40]

In November 2008, the United States Treasury Department designated Rautenbach – and a company he controlled, Ridgepointe Overseas Development Ltd – for sanctions, calling him one of the Mugabe regime's "cronies" and claiming that he had provided Robert Mugabe with support which had enabled the latter to pursue anti-democratic policies.[1] The sanctions remained in place until April 2014.[43] Rautenbach was also subject to targeted European Union sanctions, from January 2009 until February 2012,[2] for his alleged association with the ZANU-PF regime.[44][45]

By 2007, Rautenbach was an unpopular figure among some DRC politicians. Camec had been building a stake in Katanga Mining, but faced government opposition at least partly due to the involvement of Rautenbach, who at the time was wanted for fraud by the South African authorities.[46][47][48] In July 2007, Rautenbach was detained in Katanga and deported to Zimbabwe.[49] Moise Katumbi, governor of Katanga, said, "Even if we have as yet no extradition facilities in place, we will not continue to allow such people to operate in the DRC with impunity."[50]

In 2014, Temba Mliswa, the provincial chairperson for Zanu-PF in Mashonaland West and a Member of the Zimbabwean Parliament, accused Rautenbach of bribing Arda board chairperson Basil Nyabadza, claiming that he had bought Nyabadza a house in exchange for preferential treatment.[51] Nyabadza denied the allegations,[52] and Rautenbach called Mliswa – who at the time was demanding millions of dollars he claimed Rautenbach owed him for investment consulting services – an "extortionist."[53] In 2019, Mliswa made various further accusations about Rautenbach's ventures in Zimbabwe and connections to the Zimbabwean government.[54]

According to amaBhungane, local activists claim that Green Fuel has encroached on communal land in Chipinge, displacing thousands of families, without sufficient compensation. They also claim that the firm has polluted the water, bulldozed maize fields to build a road, and failed to honour its promises to pay sugarcane growers $4 a tonne.[20][55][56][57] A 2015 report by the Zimbabwean Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment echoed many of these accusations, and concluded that the project was against the country's indigenisation laws. It also learned from the Environmental Management Agency that Green Fuel had not conducted a full environmental impact assessment study, as required by legislation, before initiating the project.[21][22] Green Fuel has denied the accusations, saying that it has spent millions of dollars on developing the neighbouring villages, and provided irrigation, electricity, and stock feed to villagers.[20] It has also denied claims that the plant's effluent is a pollutant.[23][20][55] Nyabadza of the Arda board said in 2015 that the project was justified on the grounds that it would reduce Zimbabwe's import bill.[55] Bloomberg reports that the project is reducing dependence on fuel imports and providing jobs.[23] Chipinge residents, supported by non-profit Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, are challenging Green Fuel's claim to the land in the courts.[21][58]

Mandatory blending

Zimbabwean regulations making it mandatory to blend unleaded fuel with a government-prescribed proportion of ethanol have effectively created a monopoly for Green Fuel,[59][60] which as of 2021 was the only company licensed to produce ethanol for blending purposes in Zimbabwe.[61] Member of Parliament Allan Markham, who challenged the mandatory blending regulations in court, has also claimed that they result in high fuel prices.[62]

Rautenbach and Green Fuel have also been involved in disputes with the Nuanetsi Ranch board over land on Nuanetsi Ranch on the Mwenezi River, to which Rautenbach first gained access in 2009.[63][64][65][66][67][68]

In July 2021, several Zimbabwean newspapers reported that Green Fuel security guards had razed crops and destroyed houses in Chinyamukwakwa, Chipinge, affecting thousands of villagers, in order to facilitate Green Fuel's expansion in the area.[69][70][21][71] According to the headman of the village, thousands of displaced residents of Chipinge were resettling in neighbouring Mozambique.[21]

As reported by amaBhungane in the Daily Maverick, Rautenbach was named in the 2021 Pandora Papers leak. The leak provided evidence of a complex offshore family trust fund, begun in 2013 when Rautenbach, while still under American sanctions, donated multimillion-dollar investments in his coal and ethanol businesses to his wife.[3] The fund is held in Rautenbach's wife's name, but in leaked documents financial advisors identified Rautenbach as the "effective controller" of the fund.[3]