Black Gold and Hot Rocks

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27-08-2012
Read : 1454 times
Carte Blanche
Source

The global oil market is worth millions of dollars, and raw crude oil is one of the most valuable commodities in the world.

Devi Sankaree Govender (Carte Blanche presenter): 'And at around a $100 a barrel, investing in oil could be quite lucrative. But investors beware, because not everything that glitters is gold, and you could end up with nothing.'

And that's exactly what happened to overseas investors who lost thousands of pounds when they invested their money with South African businessman Pieter Becker.

Becker claimed to have connections with an oil company in Texas called Indigo Energy and promised fantastic returns for a relatively risk-free investment.

Dr Sam van Eeden, a South African living in Ireland, invested £35 000. British businessmen Tony Berwick and Gerry Blakemore lost close to £125 000. And then there was Martin Claassens, Becker's brother-in-law, who parted with £60 000 pounds. That's about R2.9-million in total.

Martin Claassen: 'The first thing he said to me was I needed £50 000 or £60 000.'

Devi: 'And the promised return on your investment?'

Martin: 'After two years, I would then get a monthly income of £5 000 for the rest of my life.'

But after a while Martin got edgy about not receiving the promised returns.

Devi: 'Did it ever materialise?'

Martin: 'So he said to me I must just wait, there's a snag you know, he's going to pay the money. So I said, 'Fine, not a problem.' The second month came, the third month came and nothing came. And then every time as I confronted him about it, he got more and more aggressive.'

Pieter used Martin's bank accounts in the UK to channel funds from his investors to an account in Cyprus where he had many, many accounts with Caratfin, and Mr Derek Melly is the person who is managing his account.

Derek Melly is a South African and the managing director of Caratfin Holdings, a financial services advisory company in Cyprus.

Martin: 'Now he had a couple of accounts there, which he would transfer money in and out from all the people that he takes with.'

We phoned Derek Melly who insisted that he was not in any way involved with Becker's alleged shenanigans, but said he was too nervous to tell us much more.

We contacted Indigo Energy in Texas to ask if Becker was in fact a business partner or if this was just a fictitious deal.

CEO Tim Turner sent us this response via email: 'Mr Becker was not involved in any way with Indigo or Turner Ranch. He apparently misled a number of people with his proposal.'

Ashan Mian: 'He's a professional fraudster, that's what I call him.'

Ashan Mian met Pieter Becker in London, was impressed by him and cut him in on a lucrative business deal.

Devi: 'What was this all about?'

Ashan: 'What we did, we bought a bond in Cyprus from somebody, an IAG bond.'

The plan was to resell the bond for a profit. Pieter Becker suggested that Derek Melly in Cyprus handle the transaction.

Ashan: 'A friend of mine bought this bond, and sent €800 000 to Mr Melly's account. He was acting as an escrow account for all the parties concerned.'

He says Derek Melly paid the bond owners €700 000 on their behalf.

Ashan: 'Retaining €100 000 as a profit for us, by that I mean it's me and Pieter. But he took all €100 000 and never accounted to me for my share.'

Diamonds are also hot property, and Pieter Becker knew this all too well. So he devised a business proposition, and it seems those he approached just couldn't say no.

Ashan introduced Pieter to some American friends, Gordon Melcher and Roy Insco, who wanted to import diamonds.

Ashan: 'And I mentioned this to Pieter. He said: 'Yes, I have very, very serious contacts in Angola, I know some important people there who do this business, and I can help you with that if you introduce me to these people.''

Pieter apparently convinced Gordon and Roy to transfer US$350 000 to Cyprus, to be used to buy diamonds in Angola, which he would then deliver to them in Las Vegas.

Roy Insco: 'We sent it from here to Cyprus, his trustee then sent it from Cyprus to the United States, and then it disappeared. It was basically a scam.'

By all accounts, Pieter is not Mr Nice Guy.

Roy: 'He's a scary guy; he threatened to kill me. He said if I caused him any trouble, he says he will have me taken out. As clear as that: he would kill me.'

Ashan: 'He threatened a very close friend of mine, he said he would go to his house and rip him in to pieces.'

Martin: 'And he said to me, if you go to the police, I will make sure you and your family disappear.'

Despite the threats, Martin has laid charges with the British police and Pieter Becker is on a wanted list there.

After months of hunting, we found him in Pretoria, living right here in this fancy estate, where he rents this house for R23 000 a month. And it looks like he's up to his old tricks.

Erik: 'He found out that I'm working with earth moving machinery, and all of a sudden he asked me if I can get involved in a diamond mine in Zimbabwe.'

Mechanic Erik Kruger paid Pieter US$7 000 as his share of the investment.

Devi: 'In return for the $7 000, what were you going to get?'

Erik: 'He said to me I would be getting between $40 000 and $50 000 every month.'

Devi: 'That's not a bad investment?'

Erik: 'Definitely not.'

Devi: 'And then he says, 'Let's go look at machinery'?'

Erik: 'The machinery we were looking at was say about R32-million, around there.'

Erik was impressed; Pieter was certainly talking the talk.

Erik: 'He said to them no, the next day he will pay the money over.'

And that was the last Erik saw of Pieter. And the money...

Devi: 'So he never said a word to you, he just disappeared?'

Erik: 'He just disappeared. I tried to phone them quite a few times, and they don't answer their phones.'

So we gave him a call and set up an interview.

Devi: 'And we're definitely on then for Monday?'

Pieter: 'Yip, what time?'

Devi: 'You said eleven 'o clock; eleven o' clock will be fine.'

So the interview was setup for Monday. As agreed, we sent Pieter a guideline of what to expect. A few hours later, we received a response from Pieter's legal representative. The interview was off.

But he agreed to respond to our questions in writing. In an email via his lawyer, he denied ever having threatened anyone, or that he was guilty of fraud. But he missed our deadlines to answer specific allegations.

Devi: 'It's been a few weeks; it's time now to go knock on his door.'

After spending several minutes at the front door we still had no reply.

Devi: 'The dogs are here, but nobody's answering the door. I think let's give him a call.'

But his phone was turned off.

Devi: 'It's quite a nice estate, I have to admit. The car is here, but the reality is nobody's answering the door. So the question to me is what happens to individuals like Pieter Becker to who you send constant attorney's letters, and then after a while you don't get any response. Do they ultimately not have to answer?'

We also made contact with Pieter's father-in-law, Martin's father, who lives in Jeffrey's Bay, in the Eastern Cape. For Ferdie Claassen and his wife Elsa, the loss of the relationship with their daughter Adele, Pieter's wife, far outweighs the money they lost to Pieter.

Ferdie: 'Well I haven't got a daughter anymore. We wrote her off; she doesn't exist.'

While the couple was dating, Pieter borrowed money from Ferdie for various dodgy deals.

Ferdie: 'One night he asked me what my thought was about pyramid schemes... He's building these town houses, and he's just short of cash... He had some copper mines in Zimbabwe... I could get R50 000 if I could help out there.'

Pretty soon Pieter owed Ferdie a substantial amount of money.

Ferdie: 'The final amount, plus the interest, because I started charging him interest, was about R220 000.'

The final straw was when Pieter asked Ferdie to store a large amount of cash for him overnight.

Ferdie: 'R2-million. They were in bundles, and I still stood with him while we counted out that there was exactly R2-million.'

Pieter refused to tell Ferdie what the money was for or where it had come from.

Ferdie: 'We discussed it, we said: 'Say for instance that stuff was stolen, and the people who are looking for the money could trace it to our house, just now they are going to kill us.' So we decided that they must be out of our house. That's how we pushed them out of our house.'

Ferdie and Elsa weren't invited to Pieter and Adele's wedding, and until Carte Blanche contacted then, they had no idea whether Adele was even alive.

Ferdie: 'Many tears have flown, but what can you do? At last you must let go, because I mean, if you're grown up, you can't rule your kid's life anymore. The road they choose, they must face it.'