Duo’s fraudulent hostile take-over costs mining firm US$30m

TWO miners allegedly pulled off a sen­sa­tional fraud­u­lent hos­tile takeover of a min­ing firm which has left the com­pany count­ing losses estim­ated at about US$30 mil­lion.

John Far­ley Pietersen (66) and Peter Mark John­stone (58) appeared before Har­are magis­trate, Jesse Kufa, yes­ter­day facing fraud charges.
The pair were gran­ted US$500 bail each and will be back in court on Wed­nes­day next week.

The com­plain­ant is DGL Fin­ance Lim­ited, a Maur­i­tius-based com­pany that holds con­trolling interest in All Aflame Mar­ket­ing (Pvt) Ltd, which owns the Royal Fam­ily min­ing claims in Fil­ab­usi.

The com­pany is being rep­res­en­ted by exec­ut­ive dir­ector, David Peter East­er­brook, together with Allan Brent Dolan — both of whom were allegedly removed as dir­ect­ors in the dis­puted takeover.

The State alleges the drama star­ted in High Court case HC 5655/25, where Pietersen and John­stone were applic­ants and All Aflame Mar­ket­ing was cited as a respond­ent.

Pro­sec­utors say the pair delib­er­ately served court papers at the wrong address in Bulawayo — 105 Plumtree Road — des­pite know­ing the com­pany had relo­cated to Wol­ver­hamp­ton Road, Don­ning­ton.

The court heard that the Sher­iff later con­firmed the com­pany no longer oper­ated from Plumtree Road.

But, des­pite this, the accused allegedly told the High Court that ser­vice had been prop­erly effected.

The State fur­ther alleges the pair knew the cor­rect address, hav­ing pre­vi­ously served papers at the Wol­ver­hamp­ton Road premises in another case.

That meant the case went unop­posed — and a default judg­ment was gran­ted in their favour.

From there, pro­sec­utors say Pietersen and John­stone allegedly secured a 57,45 per­cent stake in All Aflame Mar­ket­ing, effect­ively tak­ing con­trol of the com­pany.

In a second twist, the pair allegedly went to the Regis­trar of Com­pan­ies armed with the High Court order dated Feb­ru­ary 5, this year.

They are accused of falsely claim­ing that dir­ect­ors East­er­brook and Dolan had resigned on May 13, clear­ing the way for them to take over as dir­ect­ors.

But pro­sec­utors say the court order made no men­tion of any resig­na­tions or removals.

The Regis­trar allegedly acted on the sub­mis­sions and updated com­pany records, installing the accused as dir­ect­ors and remov­ing the exist­ing lead­er­ship.

The State insists the two men know­ingly sub­mit­ted false inform­a­tion to take con­trol of the com­pany and its luc­rat­ive min­ing assets.

The fal­lout has left DGL Fin­ance Lim­ited and its part­ners count­ing losses estim­ated at a stag­ger­ing US$30 mil­lion.