Pyramid scheme Travel Ventures Institution (TVI) or Travel Ventures Marketing Agency has cut a swathe of destruction through vulnerable communities in SA. This month, a supreme court of appeal decision spoke of how Travel Ventures’ distributors had "brutally taken advantage of informal communal savings structures" like stokvels.A staggering R1.6bn is estimated to have been invested with TVI. "Distributors", drawing people into the scheme and taking their money, included church ministers, politicians and civil servants. Among these was Paulos Zulu of Newcastle, who opened bank accounts in the name of TVI.Five years ago the registrar of banks concluded that TVI was conducting the business of a bank without being registered and that Zulu’s affairs should be scrutinised by investigator Johannes Kruger. He soon identified that TVI investment funds had been used to buy Zulu’s assets, and the registrar, satisfied that Zulu had obtained money by unlawfully conducting the business of a bank,...
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