They say if you’re going to do something then do it right, which is something Capetonian Cobus Kellerman seems to have taken note of. Yeah, if you’re going to take people’s hard-earned dosh why stop at money for some renovations around the homestead?

Kellerman, a graduate of Stellenbosch University who also heads the Cape Town-based Clarus Capital, has been found out as the mastermind behind a global Ponzi scheme running out of Mauritius. This from BizNews:

Offshore Alert, a US-based company which specialises in uncovering fraud in offshore financial centres, describes Kellermann’s [pictured above] Belvedere Management as “a massive criminal enterprise”. Belvedere, which controls assets worth an eye-popping R200bn ($16.5bn) is jointly owned by Kellermann and his Irish business partner David Cosgrove.

Given his domicile and standing in the financial services community, it is feared that South Africans who trusted Kellermann with their money stand to lose billions of rand invested offshore. The size of Belvedere’s alleged Ponzi scheme dwarves anything to have hit South Africans before. It is ten times the scale of the well publicised Barry Tannenbaum scam.

That’s right, if you happen to have a bunch of money stashed in offshore accounts you may want to do some digging. We know some of these guys have sticky fingers but this is next-level thievery. BizNews once more:

Funds entrusted with Belvedere, OffshoreAlert maintains, have disappeared through a network of offshore companies. Many of the funds administered have also been promoted and sold through a network of well-known financial services companies and intermediaries, including many in South Africa.

And people call me crazy for stashing my money in a shoe box under my bed…

[source:biznews]