Articles by Dewald van Rensburg

South Africa’s bad bet

Rocketing online gambling has become a major source of extraction from the South African economy, riding on regulatory failure, cynical business practices and paid-for influence to profit off a mammoth new social ill.


4 July 2025

Scam Empire Part 3: Money in, money out

This investigation is based on a large leak of data originally provided to Sveriges Television, the Swedish national broadcaster, to which amaBhungane has gained access as part of a global consortium of media organisations coordinated by the OCCRP. In Parts…


13 April 2025

Scam Empire part 2: behind the veil

Two weeks ago we revealed the existence of an astonishing international syndicate allegedly scamming tens of thousands of people worldwide. South Africa has featured prominently with, as we show today, an expanding local division of this syndicate.


18 March 2025

Scam Empire Part One: Inside the dark heart of a multinational investment scam

A little-known Bulgarian entrepreneur named Boris Kodzhov has, since 2023, quietly made mammoth strides in the South African fintech sector. Kodzhov seemingly launched not one but three multi-million-rand online trading platforms for complicated financial products called ‘contracts for difference’ (CFD)….


5 March 2025

#TheLaundry: the bullshit artist, the fuel traders and the Hong Kong front army

On 16 October 2020 André Malherbe, an investigator at the South African Reserve Bank’s Financial Surveillance Department, got a phone call from one of the country’s best known alleged money launderers. Ahmed Bhorat, widely known in his rather specialised trade…


16 February 2025