Yes, it was known as the Kubus scheme - the notorious rotten milk pyramid scheme that took South Africa by storm in the early 1980s.
Back in the 1980s, Nieuwoudt raised millions of rands through his “milk culture” project and thousands of South Africans fell for it, furiously buying the mixture of cheese and milk culture from Nieuwoudt, “growing” it in glasses and then drying it into a powder to re-sell to Nieuwoudt and recruiting others to do the same, in a classic pyramid scheme.
At the time Nieuwoudt claimed that he needed vast quantities of the dried powder to develop a skin cream product. However, there never was such a product and investigators found that the milk culture was simply a cover for a pyramid scheme. Tons of dried milk-culture were found rotting in a shed.
He was sentenced to 9 years in jail but only served one year.
Let alone alternative currency and alternative investments, the latest craze is called Impact Farming and it differs from traditional investing, as you don’t invest in companies or stocks - but rather the actual item that is generating the revenue.
There is 3 categories and you can buy the actual item (solar panel, blueberry bush or bee hive) and get returns when harvesting time etc. Each one has different times they pay out and frequency they pay out too.
I’m waiting to see how this impact farming investments pan out.
That was here in the uk as well …or a version.
I was looking over a house to buy, a decrepit old detached slum. The weirdo householder with some hesitancy, explained away the strange mould cultures drying in a cupboard. Not sure if they had the pet crow that kept attacking me in the garden.
