SA Crypto Firm NTC Global Fails to Escape Final Liquidation
NTC Global Trade Fund has been finally liquidated after raising nearly R500 million from investors, with investigations finding no evidence the funds were used for crypto trading.
Table Of Content
What to know
- South African crypto investment firm NTC Global Trade Fund has failed in its final attempt to avoid liquidation, following a Pretoria High Court hearing in September 2026.
- NTC reportedly raised nearly R500 million from up to 1,500 investors, but a PwC forensic investigation found no evidence that investor funds were used for the promised crypto arbitrage trading.
- The case has also been linked to the 2025 assassination of attorney Bouwer van Niekerk, who was investigating NTC; the murder remains unresolved while the company has now been wound up.
NTC Global Trade Fund, the South African crypto investment firm at the centre of one of the country’s most disturbing financial scandals, has failed in a last-minute bid to avoid final liquidation.
After a hearing held on 17–18 September 2026 in the Pretoria High Court, the company’s opposition to being wound up failed. This confirms its final liquidation almost exactly a year after attorney Bouwer van Niekerk, who was investigating the firm, was assassinated in his Johannesburg office.
The hearing itself had already been delayed once. In July 2026, Judge Anthony Millar postponed two connected applications. One application was by creditor Strinivasan Govender and 25 others seeking final winding-up. The other was by NTC, challenging the validity of its own provisional liquidation, and was postponed to mid-September.
The condition required sole director Edwin Thabo Letopa to personally deposit R500,000 as security for legal costs, a price for keeping his opposition alive.
The Story, From the Start
For context, NTC raised close to R484–500 million from an estimated 1,300 to 1,500 investors. It issued debentures marketed as funding cryptocurrency arbitrage trading through an associated platform, Arbitrawallet. It promised bot-driven strategies exploiting price gaps between exchanges.
South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) warned the public about both NTC and Arbitrawallet in May 2024, citing suspicions of unregistered financial services.
The legal fight over the company stretches back to December 2023. A first group of investors sought to liquidate the company, but the application was dismissed on procedural grounds.
A second attempt in early 2024 was overtaken when NTC voluntarily entered business rescue in March, a process meant to restructure rather than wind up a distressed company. That shielded NTC for over a year, until events outside the courtroom intervened.
In September 2025, Van Niekerk, the attorney acting for NTC’s business rescue practitioner, was shot dead by gunmen in his firm’s Saxonwold boardroom. Days later, that practitioner, Kurt Knoop, resigned, citing death threats.
Within the same window, Judge Sulet Potterill granted NTC’s provisional liquidation in a private, ex parte hearing, ending the business rescue process and giving interested parties until 6 November 2025 to argue against a final order.
Where the Money Actually Went
A forensic investigation by PwC, reported in February 2026, found that none of the investors’ funds was ever routed into recognised crypto trading platforms. Instead, of roughly R490 million raised, a detailed sample of 42 transactions totalling R126.9 million showed money moving through multiple accounts and into property, vehicles, and luxury spending.
This luxury spending included two gold purchases by Letopa worth R891,300 and R550,000. It also included a R790,000 payment by an associate, Marius Venter, to a travel company. Investors received very little back.
Van Niekerk’s murder remains formally unresolved as an active case. News24 reported in May 2026 that one suspect, Mukelani Ntombela, had been arrested. With this month’s ruling, the “crypto” company Van Niekerk was investigating when he was killed has now, finally, been wound up.
