Johannesburg - More victims have come forward to claim that the notorious pyramid scheme mastermind Sibusiso Radebe has swindled them of their money in his latest elaborate trick.
The wily fraudster, who became infamous for running Miracle 2000, a failed pyramid scheme that collapsed about 18 years ago and left many investors broke, is currently being sought by people who invested in his 2016 pyramid scheme Comforter Coins. Various cases have been opened against Radebe since he allegedly vanished with the investors’ money.
The Star can confirm that one case was registered by investor Dumisani Lukuleni in Vosloorus last week, and several others at the Johannesburg Central police station.
“It is confirmed that the case has been opened and the charge is theft. As for details about the suspect only the investigating officer can assist with that upon his investigation of the docket,” Constable Phumi Kraai said.
Radebe is accused of swindling a group of about 50 pensioners who operated a stokvel in Diepkloof, Soweto.
Kelebogile Tshabalala, who was in charge of the stokvel’s books, said Radebe made a Comforter Coin presentation to them in January last year where he also spoke about his arrest for Miracle 2000.
“He blamed everyone, including former president Thabo Mbeki, for targeting him for enriching black people. He blamed Mbeki only because he was president. He sweet-talked and emotionally blackmailed the pensioners telling them that the legal system wanted to keep him away and that police had stolen some of his money and that Comfort Coin was started by him and two other men from the UK and USA,” Tshabalala said.
“He is very good at luring investors and they (stokvel members) seem to trust him and they saw him as a victim of a bad system that was against black success,” she said.
It only took the stokvel a couple of days before they started depositing money into Radebe’s bank account. Their R100 000 would have earned them more than R1million in returns within 10 months.
Suspicions were raised late last year when Radebe could not give them back their accumulated wealth.
“We could not report him to police because we were advised that police would need his ID number and home address, which we did not have. But now we are preparing to open a case on Thursday and join others who’ve already laid charges against him,” Tshabalala said.