‘I’m basically still in prison’
Waterloo man who spent 28 months in a South African jail wants justice
WATERLOO — Dennis van Kerrebroeck says he came up with his idea for fraud-proof credit cards while sitting in a South African jail for a crime he insists he didn’t commit.
But more than four years after his release from prison, the Waterloo man says he’s unable to move his business venture forward because investors are scared off by his past.
“I’m physically free, but I’m basically still in prison,” he said.
Van Kerrebroeck, a former professional rugby player, was jailed in 2011 for his role in an alleged theft of a US$3.5-million diamond from South Africa. He was held for 28 months before he was finally released — saying he was coerced into a signing a plea deal for his freedom, having never had a chance for a trial.
He’s maintained all along he did nothing wrong, and that he was an unknowing scapegoat in a complex scheme to claim an insurance payout for a diamond that was never really stolen. He says he lost two and a half years to a corrupt South African legal system, while Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department looked the other way.
Today, van Kerrebroeck is back in Waterloo and trying to get on with his life, but says the diamond case still casts a long shadow over him. He’s started a technology company, called Cardex, with his father and brother, but they’re struggling to raise the capital needed to develop their technology.
They want to build a prototype for something called a “self-authenticating chip,” which van Kerrebroeck believes is a more secure design for the technology used in bank cards. He’s patented the technology, and says he’s spoken with microchip manufacturers and computer engineers about developing it.
But as soon as they learn about his connection to the diamond case, they get cold feet.
“With all the negative stuff about me on the internet, it’s very difficult to talk about financing,” he said. “They keep saying, ‘Until you get your legal matters resolved, we can’t get involved.’ Why do I have to keep paying the price for this?”
The idea for the “self-authenticating chip” came after listening to inmates brag about how they scammed credit card information from unsuspecting victims, he said. He returned to Canada determined to develop a microchip for e-commerce that couldn’t be compromised.
Meanwhile, Van Kerrebroeck is trying to pursue justice against the officials back in South Africa, his former lawyer, and the U.S. officials who he says failed to give him due process when he was arrested after bringing the diamond to New York.
He’s reached out to Waterloo MP Bardish Chagger, in hopes she can push his case with the federal government. But he doesn’t have much faith that the people he blames for his arrest will ever have to answer for their actions.
“I’m facing a massive uphill
battle,” he said. “In Canada, they say everything is supposed to be about justice and equality. But it just seems like a big lie ... This was a massive fraud against me, but they just don’t want to do anything about it. And it’s affected me deeply.”
Van Kerrebroeck says his family in Ontario wired his South African lawyer as much as $125,000 to pay for his legal defence — and is angry he never got the chance to defend himself in court.
No one has ever had to explain what happened to him — how he was “kidnapped” at gunpoint by police, beaten and tossed in a violent Johannesburg jail, and called a “enemy of the state” by a wealthy South African businessman.
While he sat in prison, trying to type out his legal defence on a smuggled BlackBerry, Van Kerrebroeck’s lawyer gave him a grim warning: sign a plea deal, or else put his life at risk by staying behind bars.
Van Kerrebroeck says he was ready to do anything to go back home to Waterloo. But he never imagined how the experience would continue to haunt him for years to come.
“I’ve just completely lost faith in humanity,” he said.