Belvedere Ponzi wake-up call – crooks aren’t stopped by red tape; honest players are

By Alec Hogg

The Belvedere Ponzi scheme grabbed my attention yesterday – but in an unimaginable way. Biznews.com became the subject of a cyber attack that made it virtually impossible to get into the back end. Our guru said he’d seen episodes like this launched from China and Russia but never before from a local IP address. It slowed the site down to a crawl. Thankfully, most of the country was focused on the cricket. Buit I still hope Internet Solutions puts its sleuths onto tracking down the perpetrators.

On a broader scale, in the wake of our disclosures on the Belvedere Ponzi scheme, I was by how far bureaucrats are removed from reality. A financial advisor told me he laid out the whole Belvedere scheme to officials at the Financial Services Board back in 2009 – but was ignored. Now that the boil has burst, he’s back in touch, offering his help. Let’s hope for a better conclusion this time.

But you have to wonder when bodies like the FSB will realise you don’t stop the crooks by adding more red tape onto legitimate operators. Bureaucracy simply raises the cost of doing business. People like Cobus Kellermann and David Cosgrove pay no attention to the law. Adding to already stifling rules only serves to put honest players at a greater disadvantage.

* Click here to read the “back story” and access links to all the Biznews.com coverage of the Belvedere saga.

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