Mirror Trading International (MTI) founder and CEO Johann Steynberg’s attempt to be released from prison or placed under house arrest while awaiting extradition to South Africa was shot down by a judge in Brazil this week.
Buried in the judgment, however, is a curious nugget of information: Steynberg has a family in Brazil – in which case, he may be preparing to raise the Ronnie Biggs defence to fight the extradition.
What is not mentioned in the judgment is that Steynberg already has a family in South Africa.
Ronnie Biggs was one of the members of a gang which stole £2.6m from a British mail train in 1963. He was caught and jailed for 30 years.
In 1965 he escaped London’s Wandsworth Prison and went on the run, evading arrest for several decades. He ended up in Brazil, where he was able to fight extradition on the basis that he had a child with his Brazilian girlfriend.
He became something of a celebrity in Brazil, selling T-shirts bearing his likeness to tourists and even making a song with the Sex Pistols.
Biggs died in 2013, having voluntarily returned home to the UK in 2001 to face arrest. He was released from…
