Inside market drama where Moti is accused of manipulating a stock for profit - and idle JSE watches

Joburg’s rowdy mining camp excesses appear to have returned in the drama surrounding the alleged manipulation of Mantengu shares, whose CEO accused socialite Zunaid Moti and his company insider of manipulating the stock to near destruction. Mantengu’s CEO Mike Miller shares the sordid story with BizNews editor Alec Hogg..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here:.Listen here:.BizNews Reporter.For over a century, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has stood as a symbol of South African capitalism - evolving from a chaotic Diagonal Street huddle into a sleek, global-facing institution. But for Mike Miller, the CEO of Mantengu Mining, it feels like the old ghosts of financial skulduggery have returned.Miller is a man on a mission. Since founding Mantengu Mining, a junior miner with interests in chrome, platinum, silicon carbide, and iron, he has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy targeting rural South African assets. It’s a venture with both commercial and developmental aims. But that mission, Miller says, is now under threat - not from geology or poor management, but from deliberate sabotage.According to Miller, his company has been the target of an orchestrated campaign of share manipulation - one so methodical, and so unchecked by market authorities, that it raises uncomfortable questions about the integrity of the JSE itself.Whistleblowers, share dumps and a market “hack”The trouble began in mid-2023, when a whistleblower alerted Mantengu that one of its former directors, Ulrich Bester - now with Liberty Coal and Sable Exploration and Mining (SIEM) - was allegedly part of a syndicate plotting to short Mantengu’s stock. The method? Death by a thousand trades.Between June 2023 and January 2024, Mantengu’s share price plummeted from R2.60 to roughly 40 cents, wiping out over R320 million in shareholder value. Miller alleges that this wasn’t market sentiment at work - but a series of single-share trades executed just before the JSE’s daily closing auction, designed to artificially depress the stock price.Why would anyone bother trading single shares? Because the JSE’s market capitalization rules, Miller explains, link share price to approval thresholds for corporate transactions. By pushing down Mantengu’s market cap through micro-trades, the alleged manipulators forced the company into “Category 1” territory - requiring cumbersome levels of oversight for acquisitions. The effect was to stall Mantengu’s purchase of the Blue Ridge platinum plant from Sibanye, a deal Miller says his opponents wanted scuppered.When the company reported the issue to the JSE, it expected support. Instead, says Miller, it got stonewalled. “The JSE has played no meaningful role in our investigation,” he told Alec Hogg of BizNews. “In fact, they’ve been attacking us.”Fronts, drones, and “gentlemen’s agreements”Miller’s suspicions deepened when he noticed what he claims are connections between SIEM, Liberty Coal, and certain JSE-linked individuals and firms. “Same auditors, same addresses, same lawyers,” he says. “It’s either brazen or lazy.”Things took an ominous turn when, in the middle of a court-authorized Anton Pillay raid on Bester in June 2024, the controversial businessman Zunaid Moti reportedly phoned one of Mantengu’s executives, asking for a meeting to resolve the situation “as gentlemen.” According to Miller, Moti - despite having no formal business with Mantengu - seemed uncannily well-versed in the intricacies of its share price movements.“He joked that he’d short us to 10 cents,” Miller said. “I told him, go ahead - make it 1 cent. Our numbers will out-muscle you.”Moti, for his part, has not responded to these claims. But the implications are serious.Since that meeting, Miller says the situation has escalated: surveillance drones, a mock assassination attempt on a senior engineer, and alleged hits placed on both himself and Mantengu’s CFO. Personal security is now a part of daily life. “I don’t like it,” Miller said, “but I’ve had bodyguards for almost a year.”A broken system?At the heart of the matter is a question: who, if anyone, is watching the watchers?Mantengu has turned to the Hawks - the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation - to take over the probe, hoping the country’s top investigators can do what the JSE has, in Miller’s view, failed to: act. The company has accused the JSE’s surveillance division of possible complicity or negligence and has asked the Hawks to investigate whether the regulator is being manipulated - or worse, captured.It’s a heavy charge. The JSE is led by Leila Fourie, a globally respected figure in finance. But Miller says the response from the exchange has been “emotional, angry, and full of bluster,” rather than investigative. He insists this isn’t personal - it’s about trust in the system.“We’ve followed the evidence. We’ve taken years to investigate. This is not a delusional fantasy - it’s shareholder protection.”State capture 2.0?Miller draws a provocative analogy. If, ten years ago, you’d claimed that the highest echelons of South African governance - ministers, state-owned entities, even auditors - would be caught in a web of corruption, many would’ve dismissed it as paranoia. Today, “state capture” is part of our national vocabulary.Now, Miller wonders whether something similar is playing out in the world of equities - this time with silent manipulation rather than brazen theft. “We hope we’re wrong,” he says. “But the evidence tells another story.”Until then, Mantengu soldiers on, its operations continuing while its leadership navigates a shadow war of court orders, security threats, and institutional silence.“Ultimately,” says Miller, “we just want to be left alone. Let market forces decide the price. But that’s not what’s happening. And we refuse to play dead.”

Inside market drama where Moti is accused of manipulating a stock for profit - and idle JSE watches

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