Millions down the drain

… as bogus pyramid schemes leaves investors dry

By Martha Nangombe

NAMBIAN Police (NAMPOL) Chief Inspector, Christina Van-Dunem Dafonseca has encouraged people who fell victim to two bogus pyramid scheme, namely CEBO Financial Freedem and Strivers Investment, to open cases against the companies so the people behind the scams can be arrested.

CEBO and Strivers Investment are under investigation for theft under false pretences after they initiated two unrelated pyramid schemes which conned people all over the country.

“Open cases against these individuals so that they can be arrested. For bank of Namibia to intervene, I have been told, you need to open cases.

Bank of Namibia will advise on a way forward on Friday (today),” she said.

One of the suspect is alleged to be a Bank Windhoek employee while the other is said to be a meat seller in Otjiwarongo.

Led by blind trust, families sold houses, vehicles and other properties to invest in pyramid schemes, without noticing this was an old trick used by scammers as far back as the 1920s.

Victims told Confidente some of their marriages are on the rocks and in some cases family ties have broken down because they invested funds given to them by their spouses and other family members.

A pyramid scheme is an illegal and fraudulent investment based on hierarchical sets of network marketing where new recruits make up the base of the pyramid and provide the funding for so-called returns to the earlier investors or recruits structured above them.

Confidente is privy of WhatsApp audios shared in the Strivers Investiment group in which investors were told this was a bigger than what it looked as five bank accounts related to individuals who ran the schemes had had been discovered at Bank Windhoek.

“One account has N$ 1.6 million another has N$ 1.8 million and N$ 800 000 is also in another account.

I have seen these account,” says the voice in one audio said to have been sent by a local bank employee (name withheld), who also was an investor told participants the accounts had been frozen.

“These are individual accounts not company accounts. One of the accounts belongs to a doctor, she knows herself, and she works in Windhoek and has been scamming people.

Her account had a lot of money. There are a lot of things happening that you do not know, be a little patient as the bank investigates this,” he said.   

In interview with Confidente, sources pointed out they were in the CEBO Pyramid Scheme said more than 500 people countrywide were part of this scheme.

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