SA authorities have reached out to their international counterparts as they try to unscramble the complex “pyramid” scheme tied to the fatal shooting of an insolvency lawyer Bouwer van Niekerk and the subsequent resignation of veteran business rescue specialist Kurt Knoop.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) first warned in May 2024 that NTC Global Trade Fund, its crypto affiliate, Arbitrawallet, and their director, Edwin Letopa, were offering unregistered financial services.
The FSCA said the probe spanned multiple jurisdictions and had been hampered by overseas legal barriers and resistance from NTC’s sole director, Letopa, more than a year after it launched an investigation — highlighting the complexity.
“This is a complex investigation and involves, among other things, various international persons/entities of interest.
“Therefore, the investigation requires that the FSCA liaise with the relevant foreign regulators and persons who may be of assistance,” the watchdog told Business Day.
The FSCA has already warned the public to steer clear of NTC, Arbitrawallet and their principals — Letopa, Marius Venter and Sakhile Matsimela — after its preliminary findings showed they were conducting unregistered financial services.
Venter and Matsimela are directors of Arbitrawallet, a company that advertised foreign currency trading, including in US dollars and crypto arbitrage investment opportunities.
The FSCA said Abitrawallet was not authorised to buy, sell and exchange foreign currency. Its website is “undergoing an audit process in compliance with legal and regulatory requirements”.
The FSCA’s records show that Letopa sought a licence as an authorised financial services provider (FSP) a decade ago but was rejected after failing to meet the “fit and proper” requirements set out in the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act.
But that did not stop him from embarking on business pursuits, providing financial services, and harvesting tens of millions of rand in funds without an FSP status through a web of more than 30 companies.
Letopa, a sole director of NTC, put the group in business rescue as creditors moved to place it in liquidation, looking to recoup the money they had invested in NTC.
The National Consumer Commission (NCC), SA’s primary regulator of consumer-business interactions, has found that Letopa operated a pyramid scheme through no less than 30 companies.
“The NCC collaborated with the National Prosecuting Authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit, the SA Reserve Bank, the Financial Intelligence Centre and the FSCA. This led to a preservation order in the amount of R176m being obtained from the high court in Pretoria. The investigation is ongoing,” the commission said.
Death threats
It is this complex web of NTC and Arbitrawallet affairs that business rescue practitioner Knoop and insolvency attorney Van Niekerk were looking to unscramble until the latter was killed in a targeted hit last week.
Van Niekerk was killed in his office on Friday after he and Knoop had received death threats related to their probe into NTC’s affairs.
Knoop, with more than 30 years’ experience, immediately resigned as NTC’s business rescue practitioner after Van Niekerk’s assassination, citing the death threats they received as a reason.
The murder of Van Niekerk and Knoop’s resignation came at a crucial time in their work on NTC. The two events took place just weeks after the high court in Johannesburg ordered Letopa to hand over information to Knoop to enable him to follow the money trail.
The information included full details of the source of the R30m invested, but not transferred to the Arbitrawallet platform as requested by Knoop in May.
Knoop, and by extension Van Niekerk, would also have had access to consolidated accounting of all monies paid or transferred from several NTC bank accounts in the past three years.
The court also granted Knoop access to exercise full management control over the NTC funds.
An attack on these insolvency professionals is an attack on the very functioning of the insolvency system and, by extension, the economy.
— Jo Mitchell-Marais
chair of the SA Restructuring and Insolvency Practitioners Association
The murder of Van Niekerk and those of his peers Cloete Murray and his son Thomas two years ago have rattled the insolvency sector, which has just 331 licensed business rescue practitioners, of whom about 182 are juniors.
“These planned contract assassinations will prompt any professional receiving a death threat to immediately resign their duties. Any threat of this nature is to be taken very seriously, and no-one can be blamed if they resign when they face such threats,” chair of the SA Restructuring and Insolvency Practitioners Association Jo Mitchell-Marais said.
“This can only have severe and profound ramifications for the entire industry of insolvent and financially distressed companies and the economy in general.
“If practitioners fear for their lives, those suitably qualified professionals who normally step forward will refrain from doing so.”
Hendrik du Toit, CEO of Ninety One, the country’s largest asset manager, on Monday told Business Day that corruption and contract killings had become industries in SA, warning authorities to rein in crime or risk capital flight.
Mitchell-Marais agreed with Du Toit’s sentiment.
“For creditors, employees, investors and lenders, insolvency procedures provide confidence that their rights will be protected and that recoveries will be maximised in a transparent process. This confidence, in turn, encourages lending and investment, which are vital for growth — a fundamental aspect of a well-functioning economy,” she said.
“Therefore, insolvency and business rescue procedures are not just legal mechanisms for resolving overindebtedness — they are instruments of economic policy. An attack on these insolvency professionals is an attack on the very functioning of the insolvency system and, by extension, the economy.”
Letopa has distanced himself from Van Niekerk’s murder, claiming his life and that of his business partners were also at risk.
Police are yet to make arrests in Van Niekerk’s murder.
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