Investors were offered returns of up to 219% a year for funding the purchase of pharmaceutical ingredients to be resold for the production of antiretroviral drugs.

The haul this time was Rand 12bn (1,4 bn €). This month the South African Police issued arrest warrants for fraud suspects Barry Tannenbaum and his lawyer Dean Rees. They have allegedly scammed people in eight countries of more than R12-billion. The scheme involved at least eight foreign jurisdictions in which money laundering also took place.

It was once again a "Ponzi" scheme that Tannenbaum and Rees allegedly ran involved financial transactions of more than R12.5-billion. One unnamed individual made more than R800-million (69m€) out of it.

As quite normal in these cases, the suspects lived the high life with residential property in Switzerland at a cost of R1-million a month, owned several Ferrari sports cars and a Mercedes-McLaren super sports car worth more.

Source Times, South African