A South African influencer has got the country rattled. But this time it’s not because of a hot take or a controversial tweet. The X user, @BontleFeela (Major Bontle Feela) has been known as one of South Africa’s most recognisable influencers for several years. Her profile was ever-present in topical discussions and she had a following of over 50,000 South Africans who engaged with her content.This was all until she disappeared from all social networks after soliciting thousands of Rands from innocent South Africans who invested in her stokvel.

HOW DID THIS STOKVEL START?
A stokvel sees a group of people contributing towards a common goal. Members contribute an amount of money to a central fund on a monthly (sometimes more frequently) basis and by the end of a term (usually a year) they receive their portion of the payout.In this particular story, the online stokvel began when Bontle Feela posted on social media, “Grocery stokvel from next year Jan, DM if you are interested”

The interest picked up and over the course of 2023, dozens of South Africans contributed to her stokvel for months. However, in the final days of December, when the groceries were meant to arrive, Feela suddenly went AWOL and her social media accounts went offline.

WHERE IS BONTLE NOW?
Social media users have conducted their own investigations into the saga and it hasn’t taken long for many to conclude that this must have been a scam operated by social media influencers.Even those close to her seemed to have no trace of the stokvel scammer’s whereabouts and at the time of writing, she was trending at #1 on X across the country as dozens of hapless South Africans looked to recoup their over R300,000 investment.