William (“Billy”) Rautenbach was born in Harare and is aged about 62. His father was Wessel Rautenbach. Billy is one of three children, a brother, Otto, who died in a motor car accident when he was about 13yrs old and a sister Dora.

He was educated in Harare and after leaving school he became very interested in motor car rallying and, over the years, won many trophies.

He worked for a time for Cargo Carriers Ltd. his father’s company and very soon this company had branches in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Mocambique and Malawi. Wessel very quickly became a multi-millionaire and his son benefited and soon moved to South Africa where he took control of the company there. He soon became involved in some sort of partnership with a Japanese motor company Daewoo for a few years until it ran into financial difficulty. This was exacerbated by the murder of one of the Japanese directors. Billy was to become a suspect in his killing but nothing was ever proven by the police.

At the time when president Mugabe entered into a contract with Laurent Kabila of the DRC, Billy entered the country, facilitated by minister Emmerson M’Nangagwa. This was in the early 1990s and Rautenbach very soon became the CEO of Gecamines, a very big diamond mining company. He thereafter made payments into the accounts of M’Nangagwa’s five daughters, who were then living in the UK. All payments were from Ridgepoint’s ABN ammo account.

It has been claimed that Billy is wanted in South Africa for a number of serious crimes, which include murder, fraud, corruption and exchange control violations. In his absence there police seized a large yacht and other material assets but to this date no prosecutions have been forthcoming.

Billy also became a shareholder in the UK based company CAMEC after leaving Gecamines and was responsible for this company’s good fortunes in the DRC and its rise in the stock market. However, South Africa exerted pressure on the the authorities and was decalred “P.N.G.” and subsequently deported from the DRC. This was sometime in the late 2000s

Billy has a mansion in the Umwinsidale area outside Harare with his wife and family. He has his own helicopter and soon became interested in Hwange’s coal mining activities and also the pipe line.

He is currently involved in an ethanol plant in the Chisumbanje area, Lower/middle Sabi, in the Chipinge district. – ZimEye