Flamboyant socialite and youthful businessman Teemak, real name Taona Oswald Chipunza, is reported to have gone on the run after swindling diaspora based Zimbabweans of hundreds of thousands of United States Dollars through a Ponzi scheme.
The 23-year-old socialite is alleged to have swindled dozens of Zimbabweans in the diaspora after claiming to run his own hedge fund.
iHarare has learned from online publication Kukurigo that Teemak convinced people to invest in Maximus Capital and its supposed subsidiary Max Harvest, claiming that he could guarantee phenomenal returns.
However, the fund is said to have collapsed in June and has failed to meet its obligations to its investors.
Most of the victims of the collapsed fund are middle-class professionals and financially insecure illegal immigrants based in Germany, the United States, Australia, Malaysia, China, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.
According to Kukurigo, the victims of the fund have since formed a Telegram group to organize themselves and obtain means of procuring their money back.
The young self-professed millionaire who is always immaculately dressed in white is pleading for more time saying that the money will be delivered as promised.
Responding to the disgruntled investors in the Telegram group, Teemak is reported to have said,
“This project has successfully paid out over US$50,000 since its inception, it is unfortunate that we ran into some challenges which have taken longer than we anticipated to resolve.
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes and all I ask is your cooperation, so we make this work for all. Certainly, all will be paid,”
One of Teemak’s partners and alleged accomplice Rumbidzai Mhizha who used to collect the money for the suspected Ponzi scheme claimed that the fund had suffered trading losses in the last few months. She went on to say that they were working to pay back the investors.
“The organisation is not mine, its Teemak’s. The only difference between me and all the other investors is that I chose to help with everything I had and I’m still trying to do what I can to help payback.
“For now, our priority will be to try and pay back the capital not all at once but gradually until we are presented with other opportunities to do more than that,”
Some of the investors allege that Teemak deterred investors from pulling out their funds when they matured by even offering higher interests for those who stayed. This seems to have stopped some people from pulling out their funds as they anticipated even higher returns.
Another investor claimed that she invested R200 000 and has been trying to get her money back for the last few months. She claims that Teemak has proved rather elusive.
While another investor added that many high profile people have fallen victim to the scheme but are too ashamed to admit that they have been duped. The investor told Kukurigo,
“Many high-profile figures have been duped but cannot bear the shame of people knowing they were scammed by a young boy.
“He says he is a millionaire but is in hiding. He is a pretender.”
Teemak is yet to speak on the allegations
