Maritjie Prinsloo, the matriarch at the head of the Krion pyramid scheme, was yesterday found guilty on over 120,000 charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

Prinsloo was convicted along with her son Willem Pelser, niece Izabel Engelbrecht and her husband Hendrick, daughter Yolanda Lemstra and her husband Gerrit. The family were charged with amongst others theft, fraud, and contraventions of the Banks and Companies Acts.

Prinsloo’s scheme hovered up R1.5 billion of unwitting investors money though as the judge had found, it had been insolvent from the get go. The scheme offered investors returns of up to 10% per month and as with all pyramid schemes needed fresh injections of capital from new investors to keep paying such to the original investors.

Judge Cynthia Pretorius said the size of the scheme was a clear indication of greed on the part of investors who fell for unrealistic growth promises. Judge Pretorius said as the Prinsloo who controlled the business knew her actions were illegal from the beginning and could not have intended to turn it into a legitimate undertaking at any point. She said Prinsloo and her co-accused had hidden documents from auditors, lied to the Reserve Bank and government departments.

The seven accused had their bail extended, but with tougher conditions. The trial has been postponed to July 26 for pre-sentencing reports.