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Johann Steynberg

Previous Schemes

Bio

Johann Steynberg, born 13 July 1983, is the only listed director (as per the current records on CIPC.co.za) and the CEO of Mirror Trading International. Even though he describes himself as having proven to be reliable and trustworthy, Johann has a known history in failed MLM and pyramid schemes as early as 2000 when he was selling MLM investment related booklets with his father85). Past schemes include Cryptogold, Ker-ching, Kipi86), Syntek87), DevotedInvestments.com88)89)90), Dragon Mining91)92), BTC Global & HashOcean. He also ran a trading site - FXMam in 2010 that slowly disappeared93).

MTI

Even though Johann is the founder and CEO of MTI, he falls under Clynton Hugh Marks MTI income stream, as indicated in the recent MTI hack. This has lead some to believe that he is merely the face of the company, and that other people (including Clynton Marks) might be running the company in the background.

Johann comes across as an analytical person. He claims to have extensive background in business and systems. He also claims to have studied computer programming, with limited trading experience. Johann is the face of MTI, regularly appearing on pre-planned and scripted Q&A YouTube videos. Unlike other MTI management figures, Johann seems to live a very private life, out of the limelight and detached from social media.

Personal life, Family and Current Whereabouts

Before Johann's disappearance, it was reported that Johann was residing in Polokwane in the province of Limpopo, South Africa. It is believed that Johann married Nerina Steynberg (born 10 March 1982) in 2006 and they have one daughter together.

While extremely unlikely, it is not possible to establish if Nerina had any official involvement with MTI from a company point of view. With that said Nerina had at least one MTI account in her own name, and her total scheme income at the time of the MTI hack was R15 728 192.34 Its unknown if she opened this account herself, or it was merely managed by Johann. It was a common strategy for other MTI directors to open up multiple accounts in other family members & children names to abuse the referral fee system. It is believed that Nerina currently works in a retail chain, and continues to occupy her position after Johann's disappearance.

According to publically available information, Johann and Nerina are the only directors of Dulospan (Pty) Ltd. This company recently purchased 5 properties including a R4.5 farm on 26/05/2020, a R1m property on 24/04/2020, and a R955000 property on 17/06/2020 in Limpopo, South Africa. Considering the info available from the recent MTI hack, there are substantial withdrawals on Nerina's account before the time of purchase. This supports the theory that that these properties where bought with ill gotten gains from MTI.

Johann has at least 2 brothers. Johann's older brother, Coert Steynberg made a public statement on social media shortly after Johann's disappearance referring to Johann as “my youngest brother”. Coert claims that he has not had any contact with Johann in the last 5 years due to the fact that he lost money after investing in Kipi on Johann's recommendation.

Disappearance

During the Monthly Q and a November 2020 with CEO Johann Steynberg posted on the official MTI YouTube channel on 8 December 2020 it was noted that the traffic in the background drove on he right hand side of the road, where cars drive on the left hand side of the road in South Africa.

Some started to speculate that Johann left or fled the country, and is currently in hiding due to increasing pressure from a ongoing criminal investigation into MTI. Although not confirmed at the time, it was confirmed by MTI at a later stage that Johann was supposedly moving MTI servers abroad.

In a widely circulated social medial message it was noted on 19 December 2020 that:

“Johann Steynberg our CEO left South Africa on the 3rd of December for business. There was regular contact throughout the days with Johann providing us with updates and information. On Monday 14th of December Johann had been processing withdrawals trying to clear the backlog. Nerina (Johann's wife) then received a communication to say he was going for some dinner & would later continue with the withdrawals. (He had processed over 3000 withdrawals prior to this message to Nerina) Approximately 13 hours later Clynton Marks and Nerina (Johann’s wife) received an automated emergency email to say that Johann had not logged into the MTI system for 12 hours. This security protocol email provided critical info for the team to start the process of working without Johann. (Up till that point Johann was the only one with authority to deal with the broker & technical team). Up till today we have not heard from Johann again. We are extremely worried and a missing persons case has been filed. ”

While the circumstances around his disappearance is currently unknown, its a common exit strategy implemented by crypto scams for top management to disappear with members funds. This most famously also happened in BTC Global, where Steven Twain disappeared. Its widely known that most of the current MTI top management was also involved in the BTC Global scam. Other examples of this dissapearing act include the disappearance of Ruja Ignatova and the possible death of Gerald Cotten

From this message it is thought that Johann's wife did not join him on his trip abroad. From the initial MTI statement it was noted that a missing persons case has been filed. On a follow up statement by MTI, management noted that Nerina has not filled a missing persons report as yet, which is in direct contradiction to their first statement. Its currently unknown if this missing persons case was indeed filed. Although Nerina did not have any official position in MTI, in a bizarre move Cheri Ward referred investors to Nerina for any questions after Johann's dissapearance.

Arrest

on the 7th January, 2022 Johann Steynberg was arrested in Goiânia, Brazil, confirming suspicions that he had fled to the country approximately a year ago.

Suspected Email Addresses

Previous domain links according to Website Informer95)

MTI Founders pool

According to the recent MTI hack, Johann is part of the MTI founders pool. He has at least 4 accounts, although its against MTI policy to have more than 1 account. Up to date it is estimated that his total scheme income is at least R12 090 331.33 + R5 958 032.45 + R29 940.92 + R492 253.55 from his accounts respectively.

Johann during his Cryptogold days:

Johann presumably at a Kipi workshop:

An archived Ker-Ching Sign up form Johann used for his new recruits:

CIPC screenshot: Devoted Investments:

Early BTC Trading under the names Cornelius Steynberg and Joe Steyn -

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MyBB
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Hot HYIPS
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CashBB
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BTC Pro Mining - PDF
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Income Builder Portal - PDF
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https://website.informer.com/Johann+Steynberg.html
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