None of the R492 million that investors paid to the controversial NTC Global Trade Fund was spent on cryptocurrency trading platforms.
That is according to findings by law firm Strydom & Bredenkamp, the attorney of record for the provisional NTC liquidators.
NTC was provisionally liquidated by the Gauteng High Court on 10 September 2025, following an application from 26 disgruntled investors.
Rapport reports that Strydom & Bredenkamp analysed the entity's bank statements for transactions between February and November 2023, before its accounts were frozen.
During this period, about 2,000 investors paid NTC money for cryptocurrency arbitrage, the strategic buying and selling of crypto coins in different denominations to make
The company claimed it was using a proprietary bot that would automatically ensure profits of 0.32% to 4% per trade and gave users access to the Arbitrawallet app to track their supposed earnings.
However, while it claimed to have generated R10.7 billion from the R492 million, it had only paid R205.25 million back to investors. R233 million went to NTC's directors and companies linked to them, including:
NTC spokesperson Gavin Wildschutt-Prins told Rapport that the figures cited in the firm's findings were being contested in court.
Wildschutt-Prins also said that money paid to directors of related entities was for operational expenses, marketing budgets, platform development, and service delivery payments.
When asked why the supposed earnings of investors on the Arbitrawallet app were not converted into actual payouts, the NTC said it could not comment as the matter was still before the court.
MyBroadband also contacted Letopa and NTC to comment on the findings, but did not immediately receive feedback on our queries.
The return date for interested parties to give reasons why the liquidation should not be made final is 6 November 2025.
NTC came under the public spotlight in 2025 following the assassination of Bouwer van Niekerk, a lawyer who had advised NTC director Thabo Letopa.
On 5 September 2025, Van Niekerk was shot and killed at SmitSew Attorneys and Conveyances' Saxonwold office by two people pretending to be potential clients.
Van Niekerk previously helped NTC fight a preservation order from December 2023 and convinced the court to unfreeze the company's accounts in March 2025.
This was aimed at carrying out a business rescue plan, which would include paying creditors back a part of their investments.
However, in the weeks before his murder, he allegedly received death threats for looking into the possibility that NTC was a pyramid scheme.
It should be emphasised that until a court rules otherwise, NTC cannot be labelled or reported to be an unlawful scheme.
However, one major red flag about the company is that it is not an approved financial services provider licensed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
In a statement in May 2024, the FSCA said that Arbitrawallet may be conducting unregistered financial services.
"The investigated parties are not authorised to render any financial services under any financial law," it said.
"To avoid unnecessary risk, the public should not accept any financial advice, assistance or investment offers from persons who are not authorised by the FSCA."
Since crypto assets were declared financial products under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act in 2023, companies like NTC must obtain crypto asset service provider (CASP) licences.
While its operations preceded this law, companies dealing in cryptocurrencies may only continue operating if they have applied for a CASP licence.
The FSCA has provided an exemption allowing CASPs to operate as long as they submitted their licence application before 30 November 2023.
South Africa's largest pyramid scheme, Mirror Trading International, was also not an approved financial services provider.
Similar to NTC Global Trade Fund, the company claimed to have an artificial intelligence-powered crypto trading bot that could make investors a monthly profit of 10% on their investment.