Christopher Roos, one of the liquidators appointed to the Mirror Trading International (MTI) estate, was found dead after a tragic shooting on Monday, Nuuspod reports.

Citing reliable sources, Nuuspod’s Izak du Plessis reported that Roos, his son, and his mother were killed in an apparent murder-suicide.

Police were investigating the circumstances of the shooting, but had not officially confirmed any details by the time of publication.

MTI launched in 2019 and drew in members worldwide by promising average monthly returns of 10%. It also offered members ways to earn substantial bonuses by recruiting more people into the scheme.

MTI collapsed in December 2020 after its CEO, Johann Steynberg, disappeared while travelling in Brazil.

However, the writing had been on the wall for weeks before then, with several members reporting that withdrawals were not being processed or took extremely long.

Shortly after withdrawals stopped in December 2020, MTI was placed in provisional liquidation. A final liquidation order was granted soon thereafter.

Steynberg resurfaced almost exactly a year later when he was arrested in Brazil for using a fake ID, and MTI was ultimately declared a pyramid and Ponzi-type scheme in April 2023.

Steynberg is believed to have died in April 2024 of a pulmonary thromboembolism while under house arrest, awaiting his extradition hearing.

MTI’s liquidators are currently pursuing claims against perpetrators and victims of the scheme alike in South Africa and around the world to recover more money for the estate.

They had already repatriated R1.06 billion from Belize with the help of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, mostly by sheer luck.

This was thanks to MTI’s former brokerage, FXChoice, freezing 1,281 bitcoins in June 2020 after detecting suspicious activity on the account and conducting an internal investigation.

The first official warning about MTI, issued by the Texas Securities Commission, only came out about a month later.

Thanks to FXChoice’s swift action and the timing of MTI’s liquidation, the liquidators banked R1,057,932,714 by selling the repatriated bitcoins through Luno.

Two MTI liquidators dead

Riaan van Rooyen (right) with colleagues at auctioneer event
Six liquidators were appointed to the MTI estate. Roos is the second to have died. Last year, Riaan van Rooyen was rushed to hospital after he was found at the bottom of the stairs in his home.

Van Rooyen was declared dead on Tuesday, 16 September 2025, after being taken to a nearby hospital’s emergency room. No further details about Van Rooyen‘s death were ever disclosed.

Earlier this year, the MTI liquidators told MyBroadband that they had received 9,441 claims valued at almost R6.5 billion.

However, only R588.5 million remained in the estate as at 18 February 2026, down from R637 million in June 2024.

A substantial portion of the funds in the estate had been spent on court cases, inquiries, and summonses issued worldwide.

Asked how much money they had recovered outside the initial R1.06 billion, the liquidators pointed to a circular to creditors from last year.

They said they had added approximately R15 million to that previously disclosed settlement amount. Therefore, in total, the liquidators had clawed back R178 million across more than 690 settlements.

With R588 million remaining in the estate, and considering the additional R178 million recovered and R120.4 million liquidators’ fee claimed in 2023, that meant the liquidators spent R527.1 million.

Source: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cryptocurrency/668406-liquidator-who-worked-on-south-africas-largest-ever-pyramid-scheme-dead-in-suspected-murder-suicide.html