BN Edge | Michael Marchant: how a Zimbabwean tycoon parked his fortune in SA

Wicknell Chivayo handed out Rolls-Royces, posed with piles of cash and bought a R160 million home in Clifton. Then, days after Open Secrets asked the Hawks to investigate how R800 million from a Zimbabwean election contract landed in his South African accounts, his helicopter came down outside Harare. Michael Marchant, head of investigations at Open Secrets, traced how a man with a fraud conviction and a decade of damaging headlines moved money through South African banks, estate agents and luxury car dealers, and why the presidents who praised him at his funeral may have their own reasons to keep the myth alive. He argued this was never only Zimbabwe's problem: with his estate now up for grabs and a fresh FATF review looming, the Chivayo case had become a test of whether South Africa can stop being a parking lot for the continent's dirty money.