MTI’s Clynton Marks arrested… for contempt of court
South Africa’s courts have beaten the Hawks to the punch.
Mirror Trading International suspected owner and confirmed primary beneficiary, Clynton Marks, has been arrested for contempt of court.
As reported by Jan Vermeulen from MyBroadband earlier today;
One of the highest-ranking members in the collapsed Mirror Trading International (MTI) pyramid scheme has been arrested for contempt of court.
He was arrested on Friday, 7 March 2025 and was in the holding cells of the Cullinan Magistrate’s Court on Monday pending a hearing.
MyBroadband can’t name Marks (right with ex-wife Cherry, also a top MTI beneficiary) due to legal reasons, but provides enough information to positively identify “the kingpin”.
The man being held for contempt was mentioned in those leaks. They show he was in the highest echelons of the MTI pyramid scheme.
According to their investigation, he pocketed a tidy profit before the scheme collapsed, withdrawing bitcoin worth roughly R74.9 million on the day MTI was liquidated.
From MyVirgo in November 2024;
One of the top-ranking members of Mirror Trading International (MTI), South Africa’s largest-ever pyramid scheme, is at risk of losing properties valued in the millions.
Liquidators have secured a provisional order to wind up Uprobuzz, a company allegedly used by Clynton Marks to channel unlawfully obtained funds.
Liquidators claim Marks exploited the scheme until its collapse, withdrawing 220 Bitcoin—worth R74.9 million at the time of liquidation—while having invested only 22 Bitcoin.
Vermuelen claims he visited Marks in jail, where he confirmed
he was being held in contempt for failing to adequately answer questions about what happened to funds he withdrew from MTI.
Ideally South African authorities would have conducted their own investigation, arrested and recovered what they could from Marks and other MTI scammers, taken them to court and had them sent to prison for decades… but to date South African authorities have done, *checks notes*, absolutely nothing.
This remains astonishing, given Mirror Trading International is the biggest Ponzi scheme in South African history. But personally I stopped trying to make sense of it years ago.
Unfortunately the Magistrate hearing the civil MTI liquidation case opted not to hear Marks’ contempt charge in court on Monday. When Marks will be called up later in the week is unclear.
Ditto what happens if he continues to refuse to tell MTI’s liquidators what he did with the 220 bitcoin he stole.
Today, the street value of Marks’ MTI haul comes to $17.7 million USD. Total MTI victim losses have been pegged at $1.7 billion.
Wish Cheri is next…..
I love watching this bare faced incompetence from the South Africa authorities.
I’m not quite sure how Cheri is still not in prison alongside the other 40 or so promoters, some of whom now are active in the Josip Heit/GS Partners gang…
It’s highly unlikely that Clynton would get the third degree and not Cheri. I wonder if she’d think herself clever enough to not cooperate?
Also in SA, most thick SA couples are married in community of property automatically. They’re thick.
If the SA authorities seize Cheri’s ass, South Africa will have a tenth province.
My question is will Clynton throw Cheri under the bus to try to get a better deal? It might be the perfect revenge for the divorce.
Cheri will be alright but I’d hate to be on that bus…
@ Lynndel
South African courts, like the rest of the world outside of the US, don’t do a “deal”. There are sentencing guidelines, precedent and the judicial officer’s discretion.
Stop thinking like everything happens in the US. Like the metric system, the rest of the world has moved on.
Also, divorce in SA is fault free and literally takes minutes unless there are children involved
mybroadband.co.za/news/cryptocurrency/586612-bad-news-for-kingpin-of-biggest-pyramid-scheme-in-south-african-history.html
The MyBB article mentions Andrew Caw and Coin Buyer’s Club….. for some reason the article leaves out the fact that when Anonymous ZA was digging up all the dirt, it was revealed that the CIPC page listed both Andrew and Cheri (as a Director, IIRC) on the registration of CBC.
It has been speculated that Clynton might in fact really be as much of an imbecile as Cheri has made him out to be. And now, this statement from him stating that Andrew Caw handled his investments, further adds to the speculation that Cheri used him and Johann as puppets.
After all, BTC Global had a ficticious man at the top… perhaps Cheri figured that her next scheme should have real people at the top for the authorities to go after.
Oh, and the house that Clynton and Cheri lived in (and Cheri still lives in), that property was (perhaps still is) registered under Don’s name (or was it registered under Uprobuzz, in which Don is the sole director? Either way).
Everybody liked that.
I read an interesting article in which Clynton was interviewed. Here is what he told the reporter:
I found his claim he could not remember the details of the transactions as he was not good with numbers at odds with all of his presentations he made in MTI. When all else fails, play dumb and hope no-one finds out you were saying the opposite when promoting MTI.
It will be interesting to see if the court buys his ignorant and not good with numbers claim. Quite the difference from the persona he presented when he was pimping MTI. This should be fun to watch. Got my popcorn and big drink ready for the dog and pony show.
From Konstantin Ignatov’s own mouth and reported by the BBC:
Always play stupid