The courts in South Africa have outperformed the Hawks.
Clynton Marks, the confirmed principal beneficiary and suspected owner of Mirror Trading International, was arrested for contempt of court.
One of the top executives of the defunct Mirror Trading International (MTI) pyramid scam was detained for contempt of court, according to a report earlier today by Jan Vermeulen of MyBroadband.
On Friday, March 7, 2025, he was taken into custody, and on Monday, he was being held at the Cullinan Magistrate’s Court until a hearing.
For legal reasons, MyBroadband is unable to identify Marks (right beside his ex-wife Cherry, another prominent MTI benefactor); yet, it offers sufficient details to positively identify “the kingpin.“
Those leaks indicated the individual who was being jailed for contempt. They demonstrate that he was at the top of the MTI pyramid structure.
Their inquiry revealed that he took out bitcoin worth around R74.9 million on the day MTI was liquidated, making a healthy profit before the scam fell apart.
From MyVirgo in November 2024: One of the highest ranked participants in Mirror Trading International (MTI), the biggest pyramid scam in South Africa’s history, might lose properties worth millions of dollars.
A preliminary order has been obtained by liquidators to shut down Uprobuzz, a business that Clynton Marks reportedly used to transfer illegally obtained cash.
According to liquidators, Marks took advantage of the plan until it failed, taking out 220 Bitcoin, which was worth R74.9 million at the time of the liquidation, even though he had only deposited 22 Bitcoin.
According to Vermuelen, he went to see Marks in jail and he acknowledged that he was being held in contempt for not providing sufficient answers regarding the whereabouts of the money he had taken out of MTI.
In an ideal world, South African authorities would have carried out their own inquiry, detained Marks and other MTI fraudsters, retrieved what they could, brought them to court, and sentenced them to decades in jail. However, as of right now, *checks notes*, nothing has been done by South African authorities.
Considering that Mirror Trading International is the largest Ponzi fraud in South African history, this is still astounding. However, I gave up on attempting to understand it years ago.
Unfortunately, Marks’ contempt allegation was not heard in court on Monday by the magistrate presiding over the civil MTI liquidation case. It’s uncertain when Marks will be called up later this week.
The same is true if he keeps denying MTI’s liquidators what he did with the 220 bitcoin he took.
As of right now, Marks’ MTI haul is worth $17.7 million USD. An estimated $1.7 billion has been lost by MTI victims overall.
