He portrayed himself as a forex and commodities trading whizz kid, but now a young Durban North man has been provisionally sequestrated for allegedly stealing millions from his investors and possibly running a pyramid scheme.
But Antonios Anthias, 26, says the two businessmen, family friend Charles Christodoulou and Michael Krallis, knew the risks of trading and he has done nothing wrong.
Christodoulou and Krallis want a trustee to delve into his estate to see where the money really went.
They say they suspect he provided them with false trading records and, in the instance of Christodoulou, Anthias allegedly sent him a fake bank notification of proceeds of the trading, R71,000, being deposited into his bank account.
Christodoulou first launched the urgent sequestration application in September last year. However, it was adjourned for the filing of papers and came before the Pietermaritzburg High Court this past week. In the meantime, Krallis applied to the court to intervene in the application.
That application and the provisional sequestration order were granted by acting judge Ranjiv Nirghin.
Anthias has until May to oppose the finalisation of the order.
In his affidavit, Christodoulou says Anthias trades under BluePips999, a forex investment scheme which trades in currency for profit.
He said he now believed Anthias was not registered as a financial services provider and the scheme was thus unlawful.
He said he had known Anthias for years. He was friends with his parents, who told him their son was a successful trader who had made a “substantial fortune”.
In July 2023, in terms of an oral agreement, he agreed to invest money through him which was to be held by FBS brokers, a brokerage which holds investments in accounts to allow trading on the forex market.
It was agreed he would receive regular payouts in respect of profits from the investment. In return, Anthios would get a 30% commission on any profits.
His family trust also made a R5m investment.
He claimed it had been agreed at any stage he could redeem the capital and the profits.
In August, Anthias gave him R900,000, R500,000 of which was made on behalf of another investor and later that month R3.8m.
Between September 2023 and June 2024, Anthias paid him a total of R485,000.
But then the payouts dried up.
Anthias is alleged to have claimed his FBS accounts had been “blocked” and his bank had placed a limit on withdrawals. He promised to provide investment statements with a breakdown of the investment, which he failed to do, Christodoulou said.
In August 2024, Anthias forwarded a WhatsApp message from his bank as purported proof of payment of R71,000 to Christodoulou, but the money never landed in his account.
In a further affidavit, Christodoulou said he later confirmed with the bank this message did not emanate from it.
He also confirmed with FBS the two accounts into which his investments were allegedly deposited by Anthias had zero funds and that the accounts were never “blocked”.
Krallis, who is an accountant, said in his affidavit he was introduced to Anthias by a mutual friend, Apolion Pallourios, in early 2023 as a “forex trader who generated unbelievable trade returns”.
“Initially I was sceptical as he was only a young man in his twenties with no corporate experience or exposure. But he showed me various screenshots of his daily returns. They were exceptional. He would achieve up to 100% returns in a week.”
Krallis said Anthias told him he was in the process of getting his trader’s licence.
He assisted Anthias and Pallourios in setting up BluePips Forex Pty Ltd.
After initially being hesitant to invest, he finally agreed in July 2023, to invest $10,000 (R185,000) for which Anthias would receive 60% of the profits.
“It was agreed at any time I could cancel the agreement and withdraw all of the funds, including the gains, and the funds would be paid into my Skrill Account.”
After depositing the money, Anthias reported “considerable profits” of $6,822 (R126,000) but only paid him $1,663 (R30,000) between August 28 and September 25 2023.
“I started to get concerned and requested he provide me with clarity as to what was happening. He initially said his Skrill account was blocked, that he was making considerable profits and should his account be unblocked, I would receive payments of all the profits.”
Then Anthias blocked him “on every platform”.
Krallis said he was in desperate need of the money because his elderly mother had been admitted to hospital.
In February 2024, he contacted Anthias’ father, well-known Durban attorney Stavros Anthias, who accepted his son owed him the funds, the problem was with the Skrill account but Antonios undertook to make payments of $500 (R9,300) a week until the total amount was repaid.
But Anthias only made two payments totalling $1,312 (R24,000), and he continued to refuse to communicate further.
Krallis said he believes Anthias’ claims of success were being done to “lure further investors into his scheme”.
“The scheme is similar to most pyramid schemes, as he continuously makes promises of high returns while only making payments to initially satisfy the investors. The origins of the ‘profits’ paid to investors are most likely derived from the investments made by others.
“I have reason to believe he is hiding assets, money or cryptocurrency while refusing to pay his known creditors.”
In his opposing affidavit, Anthias says Christodoulou was “fully aware from day one this was never an investment scheme”.
“He is an extremely wealthy and successful businessman and constantly on the lookout for profit opportunities.”
He said their relationship was like “father and son” and Christodoulou was “fascinated” by his trading successes, but he had warned him that there were huge risks in trading.
The partnership was about trading, not about investments, and he put up WhatsApp exchanges between them which he said was proof of this.
He denied that he was trading illegally or that he operated an illegal scheme.
“I accept that I was a successful trader but I never traded a substantial fortune through BluePips999 as it is not an investment company, neither does it trade.”
He said it was Christodoulou’s fault the FBS accounts had been blocked because he had brought financial adviser Farouk Mayman to a meeting, who had attempted to sign in to the platform, “which is so sensitive that one cannot even log in from a different electronic device”.
He said he still had no access to the two accounts.
Anthias denied being insolvent and claimed he did not owe anyone any money. He said he had cryptocurrency to the value of R12.2m in FBS, further cryptocurrency valued at about R16.4m and 4.5 bitcoins valued at R4.6m.
In his replying affidavit, Christodoulou said the use of the word “partnership” by Anthias was an “invention” — as were his claims the FBS accounts were blocked.
“Confirmation has been received from FBS that both accounts (the numbers which were provided by Anthias) were not blocked, have no funds in them and, in fact, one has been discontinued and is no longer operational.”
He said he had never received confirmation of the funds, only screenshots of a trading app which did not list account holders or account numbers.
He said in a WhatsApp in May 2024, Anthias had confirmed the credit balances due on the respective investments made were almost $409,000 (R7.6m) and $1.2m (R22m). And no less than $370,000 (R6.8m) was due to him.
In a supporting affidavit, Mayman detailed the meeting referred to by Anthias, denying that he had attempted to log into the FBS accounts. He said this had been done by Anthios himself. He said it was very easy to reset passwords and to “retrieve accounts”.
He also noted Anthios told him he owned a Porsche and Maserati — and sent him pictures of him in both cars. Both cars belong to Christodoulou.
