Hawks investigating whether crypto Ponzi kingpin Johann Steynberg has died | Business

Johann Steynberg. (YouTube screen grab)

The Hawks are trying to confirm whether South African crypto kingpin Johann Steynberg, the founder and CEO of the Mirror Trading International (MTI) Ponzi scheme, has died in Brazil.

Brigadier Nomthandazo Mbambo said the unit, which has been investigating fraud at MTI for the past three years, was trying to confirm and verify reports of the 40-year-old’s death.

MyBroadband earlier reported that Steynberg may have died while under house arrest on a farm in the central Brazilian state of Goiás, citing Brazilian media. 

Steynberg fled South Africa for Brazil in late 2020 after the spectacular collapse of the online trading platform he founded. MTI was liquidated soon thereafter. 

The platform’s collapse left tens of thousands of investors who bought into Steynberg’s promises of lavish returns for the “little man in the street” out of pocket. 

After hiding out in Brazil for a year, he was nabbed by local police following a tipoff. He was then given a prison sentence for using fake documents. 

The National Prosecuting Authority submitted an extradition request for Steynberg in April 2022, but little appears to have come of it. 

While SA authorities struggled to get Steynberg sent back home to face trial, investigations into the online trading scheme he founded were progressing in other jurisdictions.

In April last year, a US court fined Steynberg and MTI a record $3.46 billion (roughly R64 billion) for “systematic and pervasive fraud” against tens of thousands of members.

This was the highest-ever monetary penalty in the history of a case involving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In South Africa, meanwhile, liquidators have been searching for between 3 000 and 10 000 “missing” bitcoin that may have flowed through MTI’s platform before it crashed.