Fugitive lives high life in SA
2010-07-19 22:39
Cape Town - A United Kingdom fugitive, arrested after being found living the high life in South Africa for the past 18 months under a false name, was refused bail in the Cape Town Regional Court on Monday.
The British national, whose real name is Darryn Fynch, was charged with possession and dealing in drugs and money laundering in the UK.
He skipped bail and relocated to South Africa using the name Mark Maine.
During his bail application, Magistrate Deon Oosthuysen said Fynch enjoyed living in an upmarket suburb of Llandudno on the Atlantic seaboard with his wife and four children.
Fynch faced both extradition and deportation, but he is fighting both as he does not want to return to the UK.
Oosthuysen said it was "not difficult to understand why Fynch did not wish to return to the UK".
He ruled that it was not in the interests of justice, either in South Africa or in the UK, to release Fynch on bail.
Even if Fynch were released on bail, he would be rearrested the moment he stepped out of the courtroom for being in the country illegally.
Oosthuysen said everything that Fynch had done in South Africa, for the past 18 months - from renting a house in Llandudno, the purchase of luxury cars, to the running of a diner's club business - was done fraudulently, as he had done it under the false name of Mark Maine.
He said Fynch had been in South Africa under false pretences and everyone with whom he had dealings with in the country had known him as Mark Maine.
- SAPA
