In the name of God — understanding Louis Liebenberg’s grand diamond swindle

24 Oct 2024

How a crude, archetypal shyster leveraged God, the shimmer of diamonds and the promise of quick riches to lead a god-fearing clientele into deep temptation and, for some, penury.

Driving from dusty Potchefstroom in North West province to OR Tambo International about an hour and 45 minutes away on 28 September 2024, the driver turned and offered “Louis Liebenberg”, followed by a deep sigh.

“I lost money… those diamonds,” he added, shaking his head.

My chauffeur was a local farmer/businessman who had volunteered to make himself available to shuttle artists to and from the annual Aardklop festival that takes place in and around the university.

He heard I worked for Daily Maverick, which led to the confession. Commiserating assuringly, I suggested Liebenberg and his cohorts would soon be behind bars. Not that there was any certainty — the Hawks had been at it for five long years.

Come dine with me

And so it came to pass on Tuesday 22 October that Liebenberg and his wife Dezzi were escorted out of a private dining room at Tonino restaurant located at the Benoni Country Club at about 7pm by a group of heavily armed men who turned out to be the circling Hawks.

Hendrik Hancke interviewed one of the patrons who witnessed the arrest for Business Day and reported that Liebenberg and wife had been ushered out in handcuffs.

Liebenberg is accused of scamming about R4-billion out of his “investors”, many of them white Afrikaans speakers. It turns out he also circulated loads of cash to fund Jacob Zuma’s attack on the Constitution and the media.

Living large and vulgar, spewing racist bile, gambling and funding his own online Die Waarheid Media (The Truth Media), Liebenberg is the embodiment of the kind of scammer who has thrived in a post-Covid-19 age of “untruth” and outright lies. They are all over the internet and the globe like a rash.

Liebenberg is now accused of running a syndicate, Tariomix, also known as Forever Diamonds and Gold, dealing in unpolished diamonds on social media, according to Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Thandi Mbambo.

The promise of a lucrative return “never materialised” said Mbambo, adding that the “suspects” arrested on Tuesday had included “a couple wherein the husband is alleged to be the mastermind behind the scam, along with his wife”.

Nine others who are believed to be part of the syndicate were also arrested. They will all be charged with fraud, money laundering, theft and racketeering in the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate’s Court outside Pretoria on Thursday, 24 October 2024.

In 2019, the DA’s Veronica van Dyk lodged a complaint about Liebenberg with the Hawks. At the time she was the party’s Namaqualand constituency head, and her actions resulted in threats and harassment to herself and her family.

Liebenberg, when he struck up his public noise-making machinery, drowned out all dissent and opposing voices. When he spoke, it was often like a preacher, in Afrikaans, as if taken by the spirit.

In the name of Christianity

In this milieu it is important to understand that there are many in the community of white Afrikaans speakers who regard themselves as deeply god fearing, hard working Calvinists, protestants.

Touch on their religion as a comedian, musician or artist and you will learn a lesson and fall from beloved to audience-free. The faith is sincere, it is comforting and familiar and cemented in an age-old struggle for survival.

The key to Liebenberg’s extraordinary capacity to sweet-talk otherwise sane people into parting with their savings was his deployment of his apparent Christian values, in the vein of Donald Trump (who has claimed he was anointed by the supernatural hand of God to win a second term in office).

He might be unconventional, Liebenberg has joked, he might swear and refer to black South Africans using the most odious racial insult, never mind preaching naked online from the shower, but “I am a Christian”.

In the wet sermon Liebenberg, who spoke both Afrikaans and English, proclaimed that “When you start becoming a peculiar people and you believe God instead of man, then miracles happen. Then everything changes because God is with you.”

Many tried but failed to stop Liebenberg in the five years leading to bitter feuds between various groups invested in Afrikaner “alternative economies”.

But the refrain over and over from true believers was “He is a Christian, he can’t be conning us!”

Friends in need

Liebenberg has been funnelling some of the cash he is accused of scamming from his mostly Afrikaans-speaking investors to Jacob Zuma and his legal shield, Dali Mpofu, for various court actions.

There is an odd symmetry that prompted Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile, to announce to the internet that Liebenberg was the only white man anyone could trust.

Speaking on Sthembiso Mngoma’s “personal blog” Liebenberg admitted to the interviewer that he had been funding Zuma.

The diamond business was strictly cash, he explained (he’ll have to do the same with the South African Revenue Service), and “sometimes it is fetched” and that he was unaware of where it went.

“You would have to ask Dali,” he suggested.

Liebenberg has been spotted gambling with large sums of cash in casinos hoping God will, of course, be on his side.

Liebenberg in the interview added that his attorney could vouch for R7.5-million personally donated for Zuma’s outstanding Nkandla bills and about R10-million in legal fees.

He claimed to have been unaware that Zuma and Mpofu would use the funds to launch a lawfare campaign against journalist Karyn Maughan and State prosecutor Billy Downer.

“As a matter of fact Dali phoned me the other day and I had to help another comrade in great trouble. I will do that for any person in need, whether they are the grab land first land (sic) or Michael the Archangel…”

Who is in need and who is not laughing is 64-year-old Toby Mynhardt of Pretoria who invested R150,000 in savings in Liebenberg’s scheme. He was hoping to look the scammer “in the eye” during the court appearance.

If he could, Liebenberg would look right back and no doubt try to convince Mynhardt that enemies were persecuting him, thus channeling every charlatan’s defence.

In October 2022 Daily Maverick wrote of Liebenberg’s gift of cattle to Zuma, who had in turn promised him an Afrikaner homeland.

“Lolsies,” was our response at the time. DM

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