DURBAN - Some of the victims who lost their pension payouts after allegedly being duped into investing in Patrick Stapleton’s Ponzi scheme fear they will never get their money back.
Stapleton and his co-accused, wife Shannon Dicks and son Michael Stapleton, appeared before the Durban Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday to face more than 100 charges of fraud.
The trio allegedly fleeced investors of R11.5 million, which was meant to go towards research and development of an off-road mining vehicle, known as the Romero, and a paint business known as Umbala Paints.
They were allegedly “promising investors large monthly returns over various periods while not being able to sustain any of these claims”.
“He approached us in 2015 just before the company we were working for closed and promised us good returns on our investment, so we invested our pension with him,” said Patrick Mpungose from Ulundi.
He claimed to have first invested R100000 and after getting a monthly interest of R1500 for four months, he gave Stapleton another R20000.
Isipingo’s Amen Mbhele said he never received any interest on the R55000 he allegedly invested. The money was to pay for his son’s university fees. He ended up having to sell his bakkie to pay them.
“I regret throwing away my hard-earned money and I honestly believe I threw it away because I have serious doubts I’ll be getting it back,” he said.
His sentiments were shared by Port Sheptsone’s Mzokhona Cele, who said he was scared of telling his wife they had lost R200 000 in the alleged scam.
The trio, along with another alleged victim, Jabulani Shange, said they suspected more people had allegedly been conned than the 114 listed on the charge sheet.
They said their hopes of getting their money back were shattered when the Stapletons asked for a bail reduction, earlier this month, because that was when they realised all their invested money was gone.
Only Dicks was able to pay bail set at R60000, while Patrick was only able to pay R20 000 and Michael’s bail was reduced to R10000.
“We found out the house they lived in was repossessed by the bank because they could not afford repayments, which meant all our money is gone and he doesn’t have much in terms of assets that we can go after,” said Mbhele.
The trio has pleaded not guilty. If found guilty, they could receive a R1 million fine or 10 years in jail.