Peter Osborne At Home - Extracts deposits from cusomers and disappears

This should be minus 5 starts! Peter Osborne At Home has been at the Palms Centre, Woodstock, Cape Town for over a decade. He designed and made furniture in a country style, which has featured in many magazines. In October he moved from those premises to his factory in Woodstock next to Salt River Bridge and seemed to be planning to operate from there. In November 2017, I consulted Peter to design some furniture for me. In December 2017, I paid a substantial deposit to him to start the manufacture of free standing kitchen units for my renovated house. By 10 December, I tried to contact him to hear whether he was likely to at least have the framework for a sink for the Christmas holidays. His secretary took messages but there was no reply. In early Jan, I tried again, but saw his website was "suspended". No replies from any of his numbers. I took a letter of demand to his factory. It was locked up and the business next door reported that he had cleared out the factory between Christmas and New Year. There is no trace of him on the internet, Facebook, etc. I have found one other letter linked to Facebook from someone who emigrated and from whom he stole R64 000 by promising to deliver their newly manufactured furniture to their container. So Peter Osborne At Home has defrauded two of us, and maybe more. Has anyone else had any experience of him in the last 3 months?