Appeal continues delay of Amushelelo’s forex fraud case

The case in which activist and fraud accused Michael Amushelelo is facing 365 criminal charges in the High Court has been postponed to April next year.

The case was postponed when Amushelelo (33) and a co-accused, Gregory Cloete (36), made their latest pretrial appearance in the Windhoek High Court on Thursday.

Deputy judge president Hosea Angula postponed the men’s case, which has been pending in the High Court for more than three years, to 16 April next year, to await the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal that Amushelelo and Cloete have filed.

Defence lawyer Kadhila Amoomo, who is representing the two men, informed Angula that they have filed an appeal against a High Court judgement in which their application to have sections of Namibia’s Criminal Procedure Act and Banking Institutions Act declared unconstitutional was dismissed near the end of August.

Amushelelo and Cloete are due to be prosecuted on 365 criminal charges in connection with a foreign currency investment scheme that they ran under the name ‘Project One Million’ in 2018 and 2019.

The charges include 349 counts of fraud, six charges of fraud in the form of tax evasion, and counts of racketeering and conducting a Ponzi investment scam.

The state is alleging that Amushelelo, Cloete, and four close corporations, and a company and a trust controlled by Amushelelo, operated a Ponzi scheme in which money was solicited from investors who were lured by promises of high returns on their investments.

It is alleged that investors were told their funds would be traded in foreign exchange markets.

In reality, though, investors’ money was not invested in foreign currency, and later investors’ money was used to pay back earlier ones’ funds, the state is alleging.

Amushelelo and Cloete are also accused of having used investors’ money to buy several luxury cars for themselves.
The two men are free on bail of N$35 000 each, which was granted to them after they were arrested in October 2019.