Reading Time: 3 minutes

Scammer Gets Busted

Johan Carel Fouché, who is often called the “Casanova Fraudster,” was recently arrested after he chose a senior police officer in Gauteng as his next victim.

Over the past 11 years, Fouché (and his alleged accomplice, Leonie Dempers of Edenglo Holdings), have faced multiple fraud cases. They’re accused of scamming people through a deceptive “debt rescue” scheme, taking cash and homes from their victims.

Now one of the scams seems to mention debt review or counselling.

The Debt Rescue Scam

The Hawks have revealed the nature of one of the scams run by Mr Fouché in the past.

The scam apparently involved finding distressed home owners and offering them “help” or ‘debt rescue’ by linking them with investors for their homes.

The mark (victim) is told that they can temporarily ‘sell’ their home to investors, with the option to buy it back after 7 years. They are told that the investors will get a new bond on the property and pay the bond each month. This way the property is kept safe.

During this time, the former destressed homeowners are told they can rent their own home for a lesser amount each month (that way they save, and the asset is safe).  Then after 7 years they can either sell the house together and make a profit or if they have more funds available at the time they can work out a deal to pay out the investors.

Seems like a nice idea and is similar to actual services offered by some.

But after the deal is set up and papers signed and new debit order set up etc, when the victims paid rent to one of Mr Fouché’s business accounts (intended for the investors) surprise, surprise Mr Fouché failed to pay the bank and didn’t tell them. 

The banks eventually got upset and after a number of months they would initiate legal action and in the end would auction off the homes.

The scammed consumers were left devastated. They had paid all that money and had now lost their asset and were left homeless.

A Poor Choice of Victim

During his latest alleged fraud, it is said that Mr Fouché posed as an employee of a debt counselling company and used the brand Capital Legacy (who appear to be attorneys).

Capital Legacy have said that they have no association at all with Fouché, and say that he used their name fraudulently.

He convinced his victim, who it turned out was a senior police officer in Gauteng, to pay over R90,000 for so called “debt rehabilitation” and then amazingly even convinced her to pay over an additional R14,000 for an additional arrangement. As usual with his schemes, things then began to fall apart after a few months when the debts were not actually paid.

But he had made a bad choice in victims and guess who called the Hawks? 

He was arrested.

The police are currently investigating at least five fraud cases against Mr Fouché (and Dempers), with another earlier case confirmed by authorities.

Don’t Get Scammed

If you are dealing with a Debt Counsellor, always ask to see their NCR registration certificate (and then go check the NCR website to make sure).

Visit them at their office or do online homework to ensure the practice is genuine and avoid dealing with anyone who asks you to pay into an account that is not one of the 4 NCR registered PDAs (CollectNet, DC Partner PDA, Hyphen PDA, iPDA).

And never pay money upfront.

This will ensure that you are using one of the many hundreds of NCR registered Debt Counsellors in South Africa.

Feel free to use this quick checklist when looking for a Debt Counsellor (below)