Thanks, Stoic. Do you think Poolman could get away with passing off the "Desteni income plan" as something other than a pyramid selling scheme, and somehow make it appear legal?
Pyramid selling schemes are illegal in South Africa.
According to the southafrica.info page ForeverNoMatterWhat provided a link to a few posts ago -- [
www.southafrica.info]: "The government is intent on cracking down on these bogus investment or pyramid schemes to which scores of members of the public continue to lose their life savings. According to Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, the Reserve Bank has spent R13-million in recent years closing down these illegal schemes."
Pyramid schemes are also illegal in Europe and the USA. See: [
en.wikipedia.org]
Surely Poolman knows this and that it is not a sustainable business model, but is employing it for as long as he can even if he risks prosecution. It suggests that he may not be planning on continuing with Desteni but is rather going to take the money and run. Either that or he is using it as a way of furthering manipulating those involved in Desteni by interfering with their finances and making them feel responsible for losing their money.
I don't know. Anyone any ideas on this? It seems pretty bizarre and a bit of a stupid thing for Poolman to try and pull off, considering it is inevitably bound to fail.