Banxso owner launches legal challenge that stalls liquidation

The liquidation proceedings of the fraudulent investment scheme Banxso have ground to a halt following a legal challenge by a company implicated as a key player in the fraudulent syphoning of nearly R1 billion from South African investors.

The entity is Flamingo Clearing House, which recently brought an application to challenge the holding and decisions of the second creditors’ meeting.

Harel Sekler is the owner of both Banxso and Flamingo.

Flamingo served as Banxso’s contracts-for-difference (CFD) liquidity provider and was a key link in the chain through which Banxso sent money offshore.

Sekler, through his attorney Kobus Senekal, has also stalled the process by which he and other former senior Banxso employees are to be questioned by the liquidators in a Section 417/418 enquiry, in which they testify under oath about the events leading up to the company’s implosion – in this case, the fraudulent activities that defrauded investors.

Banxso was placed into final liquidation on 2 March 2026. While the liquidators have already recovered approximately R113 million, Flamingo’s latest court action threatens to significantly delay the recovery process.

Five of the six liquidators and their legal firm, Mostert & Bosman, have described it as a blatant, obstructive attempt to stall the process and a “carefully coordinated strategy” by Sekler, the owner and former director of Banxso, to “discredit the liquidators” and entirely derail the company’s liquidation process.

Flamingo’s review application follows intensive interaction between Senekal and the five liquidators and their representative law firm Mostert & Bosman, in which Senekal attacked these organisations’ integrity and suitability to drive the liquidation process.

However, the Master of the High Court has rejected these claims and, on several occasions, confirmed their eligibility.

More twists

In another twist, a sixth liquidator, Vaughn Victor, was appointed after Sekler nominated him, as he is entitled to do as a Banxso shareholder.

Although this was met with significant opposition from creditors, the Master allowed it, noting that Victor reported to the Master rather than to Sekler. (More about this later.)

The five liquidators subsequently accused Victor of stalling the liquidation process and filed a dispute with the Master, which was resolved in their favour.

Moneyweb reached out to Sekler and Flamingo through Senekal but has not received a substantive response.

Senekal also accused Moneyweb of bias and lack of independence. Victor did not respond to questions.

Banxso and Flamingo Clearing House

Banxso may be one of the largest fraudulent investment scams in South Africa’s history.

It began operations in 2022. It held a licence from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and sponsored UFC fighter Drikus du Plessis and SA’s national football team Bafana Bafana to create a veil of legitimacy.

However, an extensive Moneyweb investigation revealed that it used ‘deepfake’ social media advertising, in which billionaires such as Elon Musk and Johann Rupert were falsely portrayed as promoting online trading platforms that promised monthly incomes of up to R500 000 on a once-off investment of as little as R4 300.

Banxso sponsored Bafana Bafana before being uncovered as an unlawful enterprise. Image: Banxso website

The trading platform engaged in highly risky CFDs, in which unprofessional traders are bound to lose their money.

The company then followed a well-oiled modus operandi to extract as much money as possible from them, since they were guaranteed to lose it by trading CFDs while being misled and unduly pressured by Banxso agents.

According to court papers, more than 7 000 people invested in Banxso. The total investment amount is not yet known and could run into billions of rands.

The FSCA provisionally withdrew Banxso’s licence in October 2024 and permanently withdrew it in July 2025.

The FSCA then imposed an administrative penalty of R2 billion on Sekler and another former director, Warwick Sneider – the largest fine the regulator has imposed.

It was also more than four times the R475 million fine imposed on the late Steinhoff mastermind, Markus Jooste.

The FSCA stated that the quantum of the fine was based on the extent of misappropriation of clients’ funds and the gains accumulated through the misleading practice.

Sekler is also the owner of AfriMarkets, which followed a business model identical to Banxso’s. The FSCA withdrew AfriMarkets’ licence in December 2025.

Liquidation process

Although Sekler contested the liquidation application, the company was finally liquidated in March 2026.

Reneé Bailey, Herman Bester, Jochen Eckhoff, Mpoyana Ledwaba and Michelle Schutte were appointed as the provisional liquidators.

Bester represents the Tygerberg Trust, which is also one of the liquidators responsible for administering the Mirror Trading International (MTI) Ponzi scheme, South Africa’s largest liquidation to date.

However, a sixth liquidator was appointed when Sekler nominated Victor, as he was entitled to do, which the Master allowed.

In another development, Flamingo and XF Solutions, another actor in the Banxso web of companies and also owned by Sekler, submitted claims of R67 million and R5 million respectively against Banxso, ostensibly for loans it had provided to Banxso. However, the Master rejected the claims.

Second creditors’ meeting and review application

Sparks flew at the second creditors’ meeting on 15 May.

In a complaint filed with the Master in June regarding a dispute, the five liquidators alleged that Victor opposed the meeting and claimed he had not been consulted about the date, thereby asserting that the liquidators had failed to act jointly.

According to the complaint, Victor contended that there was no urgency to convene the meeting and that he had not been given sufficient time to familiarise himself with the estate’s voluminous records.

He also apparently refused to sign the liquidators’ Section 402 report, arguing that he was not involved in the actions taken by the provisional liquidators prior to his appointment.

According to the complaint, Victor also reiterated his concerns about Mostert & Bosman’s alleged conflict of interest and legal fees. However, the Master rejected Victor’s objections and allowed the meeting to proceed.

The meeting then took place, at which several additional creditors’ claims were confirmed and reports and resolutions were approved.

Moneyweb sent questions to Victor, but he did not respond.

Application to set aside the events of the second meeting

Shortly after the second meeting, on 27 May, Flamingo filed a review application in the Cape High Court seeking an order setting aside the Master’s decision to proceed with the second meeting and the decisions taken at that meeting.

Senekal, who deposed to the founding affidavit on behalf of Flamingo, alleges that the meeting was procedurally defective and that the creditors’ process was compromised.

His central complaint is that the meeting should not have proceeded because there were unresolved disputes over creditor claims, voting rights, employee claims, the liquidators’ report and legal costs.

Senekal also raised concerns about legal costs, which he claimed already exceeded R11.5 million, including a bill of about R6 million for the liquidation application alone. He alleges that the costs were not properly scrutinised for taxation purposes.

Furthermore, Flamingo claims that the liquidators have acted with bias by selectively scrutinising claims, permitting excessive, untaxed legal fees, and unlawfully excluding certain creditors and former employees from the second creditors’ meeting.

Complaint to the Master

Following the filing of the review application, the five liquidators filed a complaint with the Master, citing two urgent points of disagreement with their co-liquidator, Victor.

The first issue was Victor’s apparent opposition to the liquidators’ intention to oppose Flamingo’s review application.

However, according to the eventual ruling, Victor informed the Master that he did not intend to impede the other liquidators from opposing the application, and the Master accepted this, thereby allowing them to do so.

The second concerned a database containing Banxso’s former clients’ investment details, trading histories, records of webinar attendance, and recordings of interactions between Banxso employees and victims, which neither Banxso nor Sekler has made available to the liquidators despite numerous requests since September 2025.

This database would be crucial to the investigation into Banxso’s inner workings.

The liquidators claimed that Senekal had access to this database, as information from it was used in Flamingo’s Section 417/418 inquiries, during which former Banxso victims were interviewed. (More about this later.)

The five liquidators claim that Victor refused to support an application for a search-and-seizure warrant to access the database on Senekal’s premises, in order to prevent Sekler and Daniel Sachs, Banxso’s former chief technology officer, from deleting it.

According to the Master’s ruling, Victor argued that such an application would incur unnecessary legal expenses, especially since Senekal had twice tendered the documents to the liquidators, who apparently did not pursue the tender.

However, the Master supported the five liquidators’ position and authorised the expenditure to obtain legal advice on how to act to secure the database.

Database denial

Senekal emphatically denied having access to the database.

In response to Moneyweb’s questions, he said: “The suggestion by Mr. Du Toit and Mr. Bester that I got documentation in my possession is not only untruthfully, it a blatant lie, and the liquidators was invited to come and have a in loco inspection in my office to search all my files and all my electronic equipment to consider themselves whether I have any information which invitation they refused to accept.”(sic)

Flamingo targets Banxso victims

Another significant development was Flamingo – which obtained an ex parte court order to launch its own Section 417/418 enquiry, unrelated to a similar enquiry driven by the five liquidators.

The five liquidators, who were unaware of this application, subsequently stated in a circular to creditors that Flamingo had obtained the order in an “improper manner” and that it was intended to question former Banxso clients, seeking to get them to concede that they do not have a claim against Banxso and that there was nothing wrong with Banxso’s business model.

Mostert & Bosman, Tygerberg Trustees, and the attorneys representing most of Banxso’s proven creditors have rejected Flamingo and Senekal’s allegations, accusing them of attempting to obstruct the liquidation and divert attention from the conduct that led to Banxso’s collapse.

In response to questions, Pierre du Toit of Mostert & Bosman said that Flamingo and Sekler were “co-conspirators in the criminal scheme of Banxso” and that every action taken by Senekal on their behalf was “aimed at obstructing the work of the liquidators”.

“The relentless, but unconvincing repetition of baseless allegations against not only M&B, but also the five liquidators and the office of the Master, is nothing but cheap suspicion-mongering, aimed at shifting the focus away from the criminal conduct of the perpetrators behind Banxso,” said Du Toit.

“Flamingo and Mr Sekler are co-conspirators in Banxso’s criminal scheme, in which victims lost billions of rands. Mr Senekal is not representing any bona fide affected persons. Every action he takes on behalf of Flamingo and Mr Sekler is intended to obstruct the liquidators’ work.

“One example is Mr Sekler’s blatant refusal to provide the liquidators with Banxso’s electronic database.

“This is aggravated by the fact that it has become clear that the legal team of Flamingo, headed by Mr Senekal, must have access to Banxso’s electronic database, as is evident from the contents of the witness bundles which they utilised in the Flamingo enquiry to confront victims of Banxso,” he added.

“To this day, the legal team of Flamingo refuses to answer one simple question: By whom and how was the data obtained that formed part of the witness bundles utilised for the Flamingo enquiry?”

Regarding Senekal’s claim of inflated legal fees, Du Toit said the costs are subject to oversight by the Master, who had already rejected the claims. He emphasised that the liquidators had appointed Mostert & Bosman to assist with the “urgent and important task of finding the stolen funds”.

Tygerberg Trustees

Bester of Tygerberg Trustees, one of Banxso’s liquidators, said the central issue was that Sekler, “after stealing R900m”, had appointed Senekal to “frustrate and obstruct the liquidation process”.

He said Flamingo’s ultimate objective was “to discredit the claims by Banxso’s clients and to prove its own trumped-up claim of some R67 million”, which the Master had already twice rejected as unsupported and unfounded.

Bester also rejected the allegation that Tygerberg Trustees had improperly canvassed support for his appointment as liquidator.

“There is nothing wrong with the well-established practice of canvassing support for appointment as a liquidator in an insolvency matter,” he said. He accused Senekal of trying to “create an atmosphere of impropriety”.

Bester re-emphasised that Senekal “clearly had access to a database containing inter alia the transaction histories of Banxso’s clients’ trades, the clients’ names and contact details, the exact dates and durations of online attendances by specific clients at purported trading webinars presented by Banxso, etc”.

“This data is Banxso’s property, and the liquidators are entitled and duty-bound to obtain it. This data is crucial to verify the claims of Banxso’s clients; to establish where the liquidators can possibly recover funds from certain clients of Banxso who received payments that may be impeachable under the Insolvency Act; and, importantly, to establish the unlawful manner in which the so-called success managers of Banxso operated and coerced clients of Banxso into depositing ever more funds, which, from available information, were most of the time subsequently lost.

“This modus operandi is clearly evidenced by the call recordings, which form part of the data being withheld from the liquidators,” said Bester.

He added that Senekal had “persistently” refused to answer how the database had been accessed or who had supplied the information used in Flamingo’s enquiry.

Bester described Flamingo’s R67 million claim as “opportunistic” as it was only raised after Banxso had already been placed in provisional liquidation.

“Flamingo, assisted by Mr Senekal, attempted at both the first and second meetings of creditors to prove its claim.”

The Master rejected the claim as unsubstantiated.

“In addition, it follows as a matter of logic that, given that the Court already held that Banxso’s business was prima facie illegal, all funds misappropriated from Banxso’s clients and transferred to Flamingo, as the purported liquidity provider, were transferred pursuant to an illegal transaction. The liquidators of Banxso are therefore vested with a claim against Flamingo and Mr Sekler for the return of all the stolen funds, which exceeds R990 million.”

‘Delaying tactics’

Bester also listed further delaying tactics by Flamingo and Senekal, especially regarding the Sekler, Sachs, and other former employees who were to testify at the Section 417/418 enquiry.

He said that when Senekal came on record for the five employees, who were already subpoenaed to appear before the enquiry, he applied for a postponement “due to his unavailability and other commitments”.

When the postponement was refused, he brought a high court application to review the decision by the Commissioner of the Section 417/418 Enquiry not to grant a further postponement.

“The result of this tactic is that these crucial witnesses, who were inter alia responsible for the financial recordkeeping of the day-to-day transactions of Banxso, could still not be interrogated about the affairs of Banxso.”

Bester also stated that Sekler and Sachs agreed to testify virtually from Israel.

However, shortly before the scheduled hearing, Senekal substituted their previous attorneys, and immediately applied for the postponement of their hearing due to the unrest in Israel.

“This led to an inevitable further delay in obtaining their evidence,” said Bester. “They are now scheduled to testify later in July 2026. They have failed to provide any of the electronic databases or any other information that they were required to provide to the liquidators in terms of their subpoenas.

“To date, no reasons have been provided for this failure. This has to be seen in the context of Flamingo now utilising Banxso’s electronic database to examine victims of Banxso, confronting them with information that can only originate from that database. Mr Senekal persistently refuses to answer the simple question of how, by whom and which database was accessed to compile the witness bundles utilised for the Flamingo enquiry.”

Creditors’ attorneys

Matthys Potgieter of Willemse Potgieter & Babinszky stated that the firm represents 175 of Banxso’s 177 proven creditors, whose collectively approved claims total R206 million.

Potgieter also stated that the creditors he represents have mandated the firm to oppose Flamingo’s review application, that a complaint has already been lodged regarding Victor’s conduct, and that his clients are considering applying for his removal.

He also dismissed claims in Flamingo’s review application that creditors who had signed settlement agreements with Banxso before the company entered liquidation had invalid claims.

Potgieter said: “The settlement agreement is merely a continuation of Banxso’s unlawful and/or fraudulent business, which is, in and of itself, a nullity or at least voidable.”

He confirmed that several creditors had been subpoenaed or targeted by Flamingo’s parallel Section 417/418 enquiry, which he described as “extremely inappropriate, if not outright unlawful”, particularly because it was not being conducted by the liquidators and appeared to be directed at questioning the validity of the victims’ claims.

Senekal’s response

Moneyweb first approached Senekal on 9 June with detailed questions regarding the five liquidators’ complaint to the Master, Flamingo’s disputed R67 million claim, his alleged access to the Banxso database, and allegations that his conduct is intended to delay the liquidation process.

Senekal responded and asked for an extension of the deadline, to which Moneyweb agreed.

On 11 June, Moneyweb sent a further set of questions directed specifically at Sekler related to the FSCA’s R2 billion fine, whether he was cooperating with the liquidation proceedings, whether he would participate in the Section 417/418 enquiry, why the Banxso database has not been made available to the liquidators and whether he intended to repay the approximately R990 million to victims.

The deadline was set for the close of business the following day.

On 12 June, Senekal responded and complained that the deadline afforded to respond was unreasonable, argued that Sekler was outside South Africa and requested that publication be delayed by at least seven days to allow for a comprehensive response.

When this request was denied, Moneyweb informed Senekal that any response would be included in the article if it was received after publication. This was nearly two weeks ago, and no substantive response to any of the Moneyweb questions to Flamingo or Sekler has been received.

On 12 June, Senekal sent another letter to Moneyweb, accusing the author of not being independent. “Your refusal to grant my client a reasonable opportunity is a clear indication of your bias, and we will deal with this at the appropriate forum.”

Senekal also stated that the author would be subpoenaed to testify at the Section 417/418 enquiry. “You will also grant your Mr Van Niekerk an opportunity to testify on the 417 as there is clearly information that you can make available to the Commissioner of Enquiry that can be of great assistance.”

This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.