BELVEDERE is a confusing and murky tangle of offshore funds, but the most eyebrow raising is its Kijani fund, based in the Cayman Islands.The Kijani fund was started in 2011, and appears to have been a cracking success, producing a nearly perfect 90° return trajectory. It is almost too good to be true. There is, as yet, no conclusive evidence of a Ponzi scam, but it is a clear red flag. The $130m (about R1.56bn) Kijani Commodity Fund — a subfund of Belvedere’s Mauritian Four Elements fund — produced an astonishing 44.18% return in 2011 when it was launched, followed by 19.26% in 2012, 16.24% in 2013 and 21.44% last year.But last October, the Mauritian authorities shut down Four Elements and another fund, Lancelot. Weeks later, Kijani and its nine subfunds skipped across the oceans to the Caymans. Investors were alerted to suspicious dealings when a related-party sale took place that involved a Stellenbosch farm. The farm’s value was bumped up more than 60%.Cobus Kellermann claimed n...
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