Publications
Johann Steynberg, the missing CEO and founder of collapsed Bitcoin trading platform Mirror Trading International, has been arrested.
Brandon Topham of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority said on Friday afternoon that the Hawks had confirmed Steynberg's arrest. The Hawks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Steynberg disappeared in late 2020 after MTI stopped payouts to tens of thousands of members.
His wife, Nerina, told investigators at a closed-door inquiry last year that Steynberg had bought a timber plantation in Panama in early 2020, opening a possible line of inquiry reaching into South America.
While Topham said the Hawks did not say where Steynberg was arrested, the government of the central Brazilian state of Goiás announced they had arrested a South African fugitive in the regional capital, Goiânia, on 29 December. In a statement, he was described as the founder of MTI.
