[imagesource:gencraft/ai]

There’s nothing quite like a global financial crisis to kick the legions of scamsters, fraudsters and racketeers into high gear.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a surge in fraud and financial crime – not just in South Africa, but around the world, too.

This is according to IRS forensic investigator Chad Thomas, who specialises in fraud and financial crimes, who said “The black swan event of Covid just made fraud go to a completely different level”. A black swan event describes an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected from a situation and that has potentially severe consequences. While these events are rare, they can have a widespread impact on economics and health. The 2008 global financial crisis and the September 11 attacks in the US are other good examples.

Thomas has been investigating one curious fraud case of a man who managed to scam bigshots out of millions before running away outside of South Africa. He said via The Citizen that often criminals are somehow connected, making it easier to find them. In the case of Art Viljoen, Thomas discovered the fraudster’s elaborate Ponzi scheme while investigating a different case that involved his cousin.

The cousin, Tinus Janse van Vuuren was involved in selling non-existent crypto products, purportedly from Discovery, even though Discovery never had such a product. However, this led Thomas to Viljoen.

Apparently, the 30-something Joburger presented himself as a successful businessman claiming to have unique software for architectural rendering.

“He made out that he had a very unique IP or intellectual property, and as such, architectural firms from around the world could only make use of his software to render drawings for clients.”

Reportedly, Viljoen ran an expansive server room housing dedicated server stacks for each of his architectural firm clients, facilitating the processing of high-powered renderings – something that never actually existed.

Viljoen sold investments into the scheme, but this supposed cutting-edge technology is now thought to have been a front for a Ponzi scheme, cleverly designed to ensnare investors with the promise of high returns.

“He started taking money from a lot of people. Some of the people he took money from were not the kind of people you want to do business with,” said Thomas. These were people with questionable backgrounds or business interests.

To maintain the facade of legitimate success in this dog-eat-dog world, Viljoen made use of various elaborate tactics, most notably the buying and lending of luxury vehicles, which were used to impress and reassure his investors.

“Every time he was behind in paying any of his investors, he would lend them a vehicle,” Thomas said.

The bogus business quickly crumbled when investors demanded their returns.

“Things went south for him and eventually some of the people that invested with him wanted their money back, they weren’t prepared to wait for court cases and the wheels of justice.”

Viljoen was forcibly detained by some investors at this point, after which he fled the country, leaving them to flounder in the wake of financial ruin.

“We think he’s in either Germany or Switzerland right now, hiding out,” said Thomas.

“It is uncertain how much he actually stole, save to safely say that it was tens of millions of rand.”

The investigator is working with national and global law enforcement agencies to ensure that an international warrant of arrest, or a red notice, gets issued for Viljoen. Even though the fraudster is hiding out, Thomas is adamant the bugger will get caught.

“The wheels of justice move very slow,” he said, but added that crimes like Viljoen’s might take long to get across the line, but when it does, justice will be served.

Thomas has registered a criminal case which is now the focus of a Hawks investigation.

[source:citizen]