Pea shooters against cannon – Belvedere duo’s offensive pales against unravelling reality

By Alec Hogg

After sensational disclosures in March around the Belvedere Ponzi scheme, the news flow has slowed. That is the nature of such things. Complicated financial scams take time to unravel. First the authorities step in to freeze the money raising operations. Then auditors are appointed to find out what happened to the money. And only then is retribution applied.

It can take years.But while Belvedere unravels, Kingpins Cobus Kellermann and David Cosgrove seem determined to settle some scores of their own. A lengthy document compiled by their attorney Werksmans gives their version of one of the key operations, attacking high-pressure global financial sales business DeVere and its shadowy CEO Nigel Green.

The duo have also tried to discredit investigative journalist David Marchant whose OffshoreAlert broke the story.All of which is, in reality, a sideshow which pales into insignificance against damning evidence made public by the Guernsey Regulator, closure of Belvedere funds worldwide and the liquidation of flagship funds like Kijani. And as more evidence emerges, so do the Belvedere kingpins’ problems.Earlier this month auditing firm BDO added to their woes. In its report to the Mauritius regulator, BDO stated it was unable to find track down assets of R460m supposedly owned by Belvedere’s Four Elements fund. In other words, the auditors say that money invested by the public has disappeared.

Which, when you boil it all down, is what Marchant has been saying all along.

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UPDATE:

Since publication of the article above, several regulatory authorities have conducted investigations into the allegations of fraud and of a possible Ponzi scheme and have found as follows:

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission having reviewed their Enforcement Division’s report and accompanying evidence concluded that no further action will be taken and that their proceedings are at an end.

The US based Chartered Financial Analyst Institute stated, after reviewing the information available to them, that their Professional Conduct program decided to close its investigation and to take no disciplinary action, reserving the right to reopen the matter if new information comes to hand.

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority found no evidence of any breaches of the relevant South African financial sector laws.