The amount of white-collar crime in South Africa is surprising. The press is rife with incredible accounts of blatant, mad-dash-to-the-border embezzlement and fraud. All of it is sloppy, but the sloppiest of all wind up in prison, such as J Arthur Brown, the former CEO of Fidentia Asset Management, a formerly giant Cape Town-based financial services company.

Brown is accused of a massive money laundering and fraud scheme:

… the executive chairman of Fidentia Holdings, Arthur Brown, is accused in the report of using millions of rands invested with Fidentia Asset Management for himself, channelling the money through various family trusts.

Over the past two years the company has bought up a diverse group of companies, ranging from the Sante Winelands Health Centre to parts of the imploded financial services company MCubed, paying amounts which, at the time of the purchases, were considered to be excessive.

The best part? He wasn’t bilking sophisticated white collar investors.

The purchases raised suspicions because the source of the money used by the company, which was operating out of a rented garage at the upmarket Sunset Beach development as recently as four years ago, was not apparent.

The inspection team’s report indicates that the money came from two main sources: R150m from the Transport Education and Training Authority and R1,4-billion from a umbrella trust fund established to pay pensions to widows and orphans of retirement fund members.

And after he decided to cooperate with the Scorpions, South Africa’s special police unit, he flew his wife and children out of the country along with piles of money and luxury cars.

Pretty egregious - but Brown probably figured “hey, so I’ll do a little time, but I’ve still got all my stolen cash, cars, and my family, so what’s the big deal? I’m rich, suckas!”

Brown seemed to have forgotten one little thing about committing crime in Africa - You Do Not Want To Go To Jail in Africa.

After his court hearing, while being driven back to prison, he was brutally raped in the back of a police van.

Moral of the story: Don’t go to jail in Africa for white collar crimes - there’s no “nice” Martha Stewart jails here.

But then again, innocent kids who get locked up for stealing a pair of pants get viciously raped, too, so I wouldn’t recommend taking five-finger discounts any time soon.