The young woman at the centre of the mystery surrounding missing jewellery and watches from several Arthur Kaplan stores worth an estimated R40m says she is in hiding and does not have the loot.
“I have not done anything wrong,” Ammaarah Ismail, 22, told the Sunday Times this week. “If I was running around with jewellery worth millions, I would not even be in the country.
“People think I took the jewellery. Someone [claiming to be] from the Hawks called my mom and said she must pay them R200,000 for the case to go away. Other people have contacted my mother and my brother to tell them they know where my sisters go to school and they will kidnap them and ask for R40m.”
If I was running around with jewellery worth millions, I would not even be in the country
— Ammaarah Ismail
An affidavit submitted to Randburg magistrate’s court by Arthur Kaplan liquidator Laila Motala last week described how staff at the Umhlanga branch in KwaZulu-Natal were allegedly “deceived” by Ismail into handing over stock worth millions of rands at a BP service station in Verulam, north of Durban, after telling them a robbery was imminent.
She also accused Ismail of deceiving an employee at the company’s Eastgate, Johannesburg store into believing she had been authorised to remove high-value jewellery and watches. More stock was taken in a similar way from the company’s World’s Finest Watches shop in Nelson Mandela Square and Sandton City Diamond Walk store.
A substantial inventory of missing items, supplied by liquidators, includes diamond tennis bracelets, rings, necklaces and luxury watches including Tissot, Longines, Tag Heuer and Seiko brands. A Hublot watch valued at R408,000 and a diamond ring worth R823,999 are listed among the items missing.
Ismail was employed as the personal assistant to Hoosein Mohamed, a former director of Arthur Kaplan who is in custody after allegedly assaulting Motala. The company went into liquidation in December.
Motala said in her affidavit that Ismail is Mohamed's girlfriend and that the two worked together to take the jewellery before it could be sold to pay creditors. She says Ismail was caught on CCTV footage helping remove high-end stock.
But Ismail denied this. “I am Hoosein's personal assistant and I see him as a father figure, while he is very protective of me,” she told the Sunday Times. She said she had left Gauteng and was unwilling to disclose her location.
She said a recent overseas trip she had accompanied Mohamed on was for work “because Hoosein is teaching me the business”.
She said the BMW she drives belonged to Mohamed’s ex-wife, but had been made available to her “because I was having to Uber home late at night a lot, and it wasn’t safe”.
“It’s his wife’s car. It does not belong to me,” Ismail said.
Police spokesperson Col Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said a fraud case had been opened at the Sandton police station in connection with the missing jewellery. This week she could not give any updates on the case.
However, Motala's lawyer Ian Small Smith said police had yet to contact Motala, more than a week after the case was opened.
“I am flabbergasted and disappointed that not a single officer has reached out to the complainant,” he said.
The alleged assault by Mohamed happened on June 1 and he was arrested the same day.
Motala said in her affidavit that she visited Arthur Kaplan head office in Sandton where Mohamed “assaulted me in a fit of unprovoked rage, went on a screaming tirade threatening to kill me and ... violently slamming me against the wall, and thereafter pointing his firearm in my face and threatened to kill me”.
Mohamed had denied all charges, as well as Motala’s allegations that he was involved in the theft of the jewellery. He denies Ismail is his girlfriend.
He said he had been confronted by security guards at the office entrance. He had then tumbled to the ground during a scuffle in which his firearm had fallen out of its holster and was then taken from him.
“At no point did I aim it at anyone or threaten anyone with it,” he told the court.
While he was in custody Motala continued her investigations, which led her to open a theft case, amounting to about R40m, with Sandton detectives on June 6.
Mohamed's bail application in Randburg magistrate’s court has been lengthy, involving detailed testimony about the alleged assault, the missing jewellery and the liquidation.
Mohamed remains in custody after his bail hearing stalled on Thursday due to a technical glitch. Magistrate Liesl Davis asked Luxe Holdings executive Thulani Ngubane to come to court on Monday to take the stand.
She wants him to clarify conflicting claims relating to an incident in which Mohamed was alleged to have hit Ngubane on the head with his firearm in an assault case last December. The case was later withdrawn.
Mohamed's lawyer Ian Levitt told the Sunday Times the case had morphed into a complicated mass of allegations and counterallegations, with various back stories and multiple players.
“It should have been handled like any other simple schedule 1 offence with police bail issued within a couple of hours,” he said.
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