Those
in charge of advertising at the Northern KwaZulu-Natal
Courier must surely be regretting it now.
The
paper’s greed was such that it accepted feloniously obtained money from people
it knew were crooks. It had first hand knowledge of this because it had carried
not one exposé of the Coin-It and CommEx ponzi schemes, but three in quick
succession.
Then,
on the face of it just to make money, it accepted a half page advertorial
written by the promoters of these schemes that did nothing else but extol the
charitable work Coin-It had been doing around Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal where
these con-artists are based.
At the
bottom of this notorious puff for Coin-It the promoters included colour logos
of what a reader could only conclude were businesses own by members of the De
Beer family, the people behind these ponzi schemes. One was for Engen the
R70 000-million a year South African oil company that was voted South
Africa’s Favourite Petrol Station this year for the ninth consecutive time in
the Sunday Times’ annual Top Brands
Awards.
Hardly
a company you would expect to be associated with these Dundee
crooks. So I sent an email to Yussa Hassan Engen’s Chief Executive asking him
if he was happy to have Engen’s name linked to the De Beer family and their
ponzi scheme rackets. Shortly afterwards I got the following reply from Gavin
Smith Engen’s External Communications manager.
But it shows how dicey it is for a newspaper to print
something like this, especially when it comes from known swindlers.(Newspaper behaving badly)
Meanwhile activist Rowena James quit as the Administrator
of the Facebook group she started to try and nail those responsible for these
ponzi schemes.
“I actually feel I have done all I can,” she told me. “So
there it is the activist has hung up her hat. Our advocate failed to get an
urgent order to liquidate Coin-It because the company suddenly found 28
investors who had been paid every month.”
This is just a token amount among what is said to be
27 000 people who put their faith in Coin-It for a better life only to
find it has now been closed by the authorities.
“So
they are opposing the order.” Rowena continued. “We go back to court on 4th
December.
“I still have not heard from the Hawks. I did however email Gerrie Nel’s office. I got a reply and apparently the Commercial Crimes Unit; Asset Forfeiture Unit and the National Prosecuting Authority are all working on this case. I was told to just cooperate with them.”
“I still have not heard from the Hawks. I did however email Gerrie Nel’s office. I got a reply and apparently the Commercial Crimes Unit; Asset Forfeiture Unit and the National Prosecuting Authority are all working on this case. I was told to just cooperate with them.”
“Last night a man phoned me and told me he had been a
policeman for 30 years. He asked me not to stop as he said I was doing a
sterling job. He is from Pietermaritzburg and undertook to visit Sgt. Zuma (the
member of the Hawks dealing with the investigation) and get us some decent
feedback.
“So, I am stepping up my campaign to get investors to make
statements to Sgt. Zuma and we are doing all we can to cooperate, despite the
fact that my statement was leaked.”
She added that some investors had staged a sit-in outside
Coin-It’s premises and had refused to leave until they get paid. (Rowena James gets death threat)
It was very brave of a small community
newspaper like the Courier (Readership of 15 000 around Dundee
with a weekly distribution of 4 500 papers) to expose the shenanigans
of these ponzi schemes that have millions to spend on legal actions, but then
they spoilt it all by taking that advertorial. I gathered that the Editor Terry
Worley had no say in the matter as so often happens on newspapers when money
making advertising is concerned.
Regards
Jon, the Consumer Watchdog you can count on.
P.S. I didn’t go any further with my investigation into
the logos of the businesses that appeared in the advertorial as I felt that
Engen was the most important one.
No comments:
Post a Comment