JOHANNESBURG – Zimbabwean business tycoon Billy Rautenbach has handed himself over to South African authorities and agreed to pay a R40 million fine, bringing to an end his 10-year attempt to escape fraud and tax-evasion charges, an official said on Tuesday.

The fugitive multi-millionaire businessman, who has close links to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party, skipped South Africa in 1999 after a warrant for his arrest was issued for numerous fraud charges committed while he headed the South African arm of the Hyundai Motor Corporation.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga said Rautenbach handed himself over on Friday and appeared on 326 charges of fraud in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court and was sentenced to pay a R40 million fine in terms of a plea agreement.

"He had to pay R10 million of that R40 million immediately," said Mhaga, adding that the remainder will be paid in instalments – R15 million to the South African Revenue Service and another R15 million to the Criminal Asset Recovery Fund.

"In the event that he fails to make payment, we have secured his farm, which is worth more than R30 million in Paarl in the Western Cape," said Mhaga.

The controversial businessman was two years ago expelled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for entering the minerals-rich country illegally.

Rautenbach had extensive mining interests in DRC, running cobalt-mining ventures at the height of the country’s civil war after he first ventured into the Congo as a relatively unknown in the mining world when he was hired by former president Laurent Kabila in October 1998 to run Gecamines, then the mainstay of the former Zaire’s economy.

Zimbabwe had deployed its army to help Kabila repel rebels fighting him for the control of the minerals-rich country. – ZimOnline