Dangerous Deceits: Julian Askin and the Tollgate Scandal by Frank Welsh

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The truth behind one of the most shocking scandals of recent years, exposing a web of corruption involving the Broederbond, the South African government, and the criminal misuse of billions of rand of taxpayers’ money that could have helped build the new South Africa.

In March 1990, shortly after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Julian Askin, a British businessman, led a consortium of investors in acquiring the Tollgate Group, one of South Africa’s biggest industrial companies. He soon discovered that he had been grossly misled by the company’s bankers — Trust Bank, now part of Absa, South Africa’s largest bank, controlled by Broederbond members. A confrontation with Absa led to the bank’s liquidation of Tollgate and subsequent harrying of Askin, culminating in his arrest at gunpoint by Italian authorities suborned by South Africa. On his arrest being declared illegal by the Italian Supreme Court, Askin began a detailed investigation which uncovered a conspiracy by the South African Reserve Bank, another Afrikaner-controlled institution, to defraud the state in order to benefit Absa’s Afrikaner shareholders, including the Rupert Group and Sanlam. In spite of death threats being made to Askin and his family, the facts are now uncovered, to reveal a terrifying account of the relentless pursuit of an individual by a massive institution with powerful hidden supporters.

Frank Welsh, author of A History of South Africa and Uneasy City, an investigation of London’s financial institutions, has prepared this account of the extent to which the Afrikaner Broederbond was able to maintain its influence, and the extent of its corruption both before and after the election of Nelson Mandela as President.