Chrome miner Mantengu’s case of an epic generational conspiracy going right to the top of the JSE hinges on “clearly fabricated emails”, the stock exchange argues.
Mike Miller, the CEO of the small mining company worth just R200m, has rocked the market with sensational claims that there is a “syndicate”, including top executives from the JSE, working to manipulate the share prices of property firms like Rebosis and mining companies like Mantengu.
Last Thursday, the JSE lodged court papers in Joburg’s high court demanding that Miller reveal the evidence – or shut up. The high-stakes case is due to proceed next Tuesday.
This week, Miller filed his replying court papers, showing his hand. The evidence: screenshots of emails which he says implicate former Sanlam CEO Ian Kirk, JSE director Zarina Bassa and even commentator The Finance Ghost in an unlikely conspiracy.
The emails “demonstrate that at least one director and high-ranking employee of the JSE is, as a matter of fact, involved in the manipulation of Mantengu’s shares and possibly those of other companies”, he says in an affidavit.
Yet Miller reveals that he was never given the original emails, but only “screenshots of the emails which were delivered in an envelope to Mantengu’s office anonymously by an unknown man” in September.
Miller argues that these emails show correspondence between Bassa, someone called “Shadowghost” and “iwk432@gmail.com” aimed at manipulating Mantengu’s share price.
“Mantengu and I suspect that this may be a reference to [Ian] Kirk, another non-executive director of the JSE [and] ‘Shadowghost’ may be a reference to [the] financial analyst [who] operates under the pseudonym Finance Ghost’,” he said.
In the email screenshot in the court papers which he claims came from Bassa, the writer says the “account must look organic, not staged”. Another email, sent from “iwk kirk”, says “the share price is stabilizing [sic], please do something”.
And a later email sent to “Shadowghost” from “iwk” suggests that JSE insiders were involved in a complicated scheme to manipulate Mantengu’s shares, for which they were paid using “crypto accounts”.
These are fantastical claims – the only problem, according to all those named, is that the emails are forged.
Contacted yesterday, Bassa said she never sent or received any of the mails that Mantengu revealed in the court papers. “These emails in Mantengu’s papers are blatant forgeries. I’ve had cyber experts looking at it, which say as much. Behind this lies an attack on the JSE,” she told Currency.
Kirk said the same thing when contacted, adding that he’d never even heard of Mantengu until this fracas broke out.
“I can tell you I never sent any of those emails – I’ve never had an email account like that, and have certainly never been involved in share price manipulation,” he says.
Rob Peché, a chartered accountant and the man behind the Finance Ghost, was even more furious about being dragged into the fracas.
“The only conspiracy exists in Mike Miller’s head,” he told Currency. “It would be the dumbest thing for me, if I wanted to do something illicit, to send an email from an account like ‘shadow ghost’. And I’ve never had a position in the stock,” he added.
While the Finance Ghost has published articles about Mantengu, he has also written about every other JSE-listed company too.
Screenshot metadata
In its court papers, the JSE’s director of issuer services Andre Visser says the exchange had obtained affidavits from all its directors implicated in the “emails” to say they were not involved.
Visser says Miller’s claims could “undermine investor confidence, … the integrity of the markets, and the reputation of the JSE” while its staff had been “unjustly targeted”.
Though Miller had earlier spoken about a “metadata” analysis of the emails, this would be impossible to have done since he was only given screenshots.
Instead, in his replying papers, he attaches a “confidential forensic report” into the emails prepared in September. That report says the images were JPEG files, and recommends that he obtain “the original emails from the source”.
When contacted yesterday, Miller said their denials were predictable. “Why would anyone admit to that? But what I can say is that we have verified that this is Zarina Bassa’s email address. If she didn’t send this, who did,” he told Currency.
It’s an interesting question because, if those emails were fabricated then dropped off “anonymously” at Mantengu’s offices, somebody might have been trying to set Miller up.
Miller said there is no upside for him in raising these issues, as his family now has a round-the-clock security detail, given threats made to his life. “The reality is, my company is under attack, and I have to respond. We don’t think this is happening, we know this is happening,” he said.
Miller said there are “possibly hundreds of people” involved in the conspiracy with “the syndicate” who routinely drive down company share prices to a point where they can take them over and strip their assets. Whistleblowers, he said, have admitted as much to him.
Hawks investigating
This is a high-stakes case, but the capital markets regulator, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, probed Mantengu’s claims of share-price manipulation, and found there was nothing to it.
All the trading in Mantengu’s stock amounted to “lawful securities transactions in the ordinary course of business”, it has said.
Undeterred, Miller has lodged a criminal complaint with the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks, which is now investigating this case of “corruption” at the JSE.
Given the outlandish allegations, the court hearing, which kicks off on Tuesday between the JSE and the mining company, is likely to produce fireworks.
In his application, Miller says the JSE cannot interdict him because ventilating these claims accords with his right to freedom of expression – and the country needs to know this.
“What we’ve stumbled on is a syndicate of people corrupting our capital market. We can’t now keep quiet about this just because the JSE screams ‘defamation’ and wants us to,” he told Currency.
Top image: Mantengu CEO Mike Miller. Picture: mantengu.com; Rawpixel/Currency collage.
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