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Thread: Anything but Swiss

  1. #1
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    Default Anything but Swiss

    http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapo...ore#xtor=CS1-2

    Ripples from a scam that has allegedly cost Chinese investors US$1.2 billion (S$1.6 billion) touched Singapore's shores yesterday.


    A group of angry investors from China showed up at a flat in Sengkang yesterday afternoon to demand their money back from a Singaporean employee of the company that allegedly caused thousands of investors to get their fingers burnt.

    The seven, who had flown in from Beijing on Sunday, knocked repeatedly on the door of a Singaporean's flat for two hours to no avail.

    He purportedly worked for API Premiere Swiss Trust AG - a finance firm that has reportedly cost almost 30,000 investors from China US$1.2 billion of their savings.

    In the five days here, the investors have engaged lawyer Chung Ting Fai and lodged a police report with the Commercial Affairs Department.

    They left a note written in Chinese on the man's door. It read: "Return our hard-earned money."

    Street protests were held in Beijing and Hong Kong earlier this year when investors realised they might have been duped.

    In January, API sent out a message informing investors that its servers had been hacked.

    Investors could not access their accounts and were told that their money was gone.

    Mr Zhao Guangcai, the group's leader, said in Mandarin: "We went to Switzerland and found out that the company was a shell."

    The police had sealed doors to its so-called headquarters.

    The group in Singapore said they had invested through another Singaporean, who visited China and held seminars in Beijing.

    Some investors were also invited to all-expenses-paid trips to Switzerland - where they met with traders - and Dubai.

    They saw forex trading rooms, where traders worked and made deals online.

    - See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapo...ore#xtor=CS1-2

    Most investors had started by investing about US$10,000 and could withdraw their money any time they wanted. They got back their principle sum - with 8 per cent interest - within a week.

    Over time, they began to pump in more money. Mr Zhao and Ms Miao Lihua, 33, who owns a fashion company, put in more than US$1 million each.

    Now, they want their money back.

    The group, due to return to China yesterday, extended their stay after realising that one of the company's employees was in Singapore.

    So far, they have spent about $10,000 each, flying around the world to look for leads.

    They plan to stick around the Singaporean's registered address to demand an explanation from the employee.

    Mr Zhao, 58, said: "He is the closest clue we have to getting our money back. We are not giving up so easily."

    According to Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao, the Singaporean said he was also a victim and that the company owed him $30,000 in wages.

    He blamed the other Singaporean, whose registered flat in Mei Ling Street is empty, for roping him into the business.

    "I have been looking for him since the start of the year, but I can't find him. I don't want to talk about this incident any more. I just want the situation to be over," he said.

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    - See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapo...ore#xtor=CS1-2

  2. #2
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    Default

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...-currency-scam

    Street protests in Beijing and Hong Kong. Chinese investors flying 5,000 miles to show up on doorsteps in Geneva and demand their money back. It’s the fallout so far from an alleged scam that its victims say robbed 29,000 Chinese investors of $1.2 billion.
    They were promised returns of as much as 10 percent a month from currency trading by API Premiere Swiss Trust AG and associated companies, according to interviews with six victims and documents they shared over the past three months. The money disappeared from their accounts in January, the investors said.

    “We wanted to know the truth,” said Chen Biya, 43, an advertising agency owner in Beijing who flew to Geneva in late March with two dozen fellow investors to try to recover their missing millions. They sought redress at API’s locked former offices, the public prosecutor and in meetings with lawyers, then went to Bern and Zurich to appeal to the Chinese embassy and Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, known as Finma, he said. “But nobody has been able to tell us the entire story.”
    Unprecedented billions of yuan flowing from China and into investments around the world are creating opportunities for fraudsters, as well as legitimate money managers trying to get their hands on the cash. The cross-border nature of the flows is posing challenges for regulators and crime fighters alike.
    More Vulnerable
    “Frankly, the law enforcement authorities tend to be focused only within their own jurisdictions and move deadly slowly on investigations,” said Steve Vickers of Hong Kong-based risk consultancy Steve Vickers & Associates, who said the large amounts of capital seeking offshore havens, some by circumventing China’s currency controls, make Chinese more vulnerable to cross-border crime.
    Geneva’s public prosecutor confirmed it’s investigating API and an associated company, Alpen Asset Management Trust Sarl -- both described as “heavily indebted” by Finma, which initiated bankruptcy proceedings against them last month. In January, Finma issued a public warning that API and Alpen were wrongly claiming to be licensed and supervised by the Swiss regulator. It came about 10 days after the investors said they discovered their accounts had been emptied.
    Representatives of API and Alpen couldn’t be contacted, except for the former API director listed in the Swiss public register, Aleksander Kaja, who declined to comment. Offices formerly used by API in Geneva were vacated months ago, while a Hong Kong office was also abandoned, with a writ for unpaid rent left stuck to the doors.
    Swiss Image
    “Both companies used their Swiss image to attract new clients, although they were mainly managed from abroad,” said Vinzenz Mathys, a spokesman for Bern-based Finma. “This, along with the losses endured by depositors, has a negative impact on the Swiss financial market’s good reputation.”
    Chinese investors said they thought the company’s claim it was regulated in Switzerland made it secure.
    “Switzerland is famous for its financial-services industry,” said Han Mingyun, a 65-year-old widow in Wuhan who said she was lured by the promise of a Swiss investment and saw $45,000 in savings disappear. “They are supposed to be the best and safe.”
    Asked last week about the alleged scam and API’s use of Switzerland to draw investors from China, Finma’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Branson said: “Where there is a financial center, people will always try to take advantage.”
    Beijing Protests
    In Beijing, scores of investors have held four protests, the latest last week outside the Embassy of Switzerland, urging the Swiss government to work with China on the investigation.
    On May 20, they protested outside the government petition office in Dongcheng district, urging that Chinese police set up a unit to investigate. The Beijing Public Security Bureau and Ministry of Public Security didn’t respond to faxed requests for comment. Two telephone calls to the petition office went unanswered.
    “We want the police to strengthen their investigation,” said Han, the widow, who took part in the latest Beijing protest. “People around the country are still suffering from the scam.”
    The investors said they are aware of complaints from places including Shanghai, Zhejiang, Chengdu, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Hubei and Shenzhen and they believe their ranks number 29,000 people who lost the equivalent of $1.2 billion. They were directed to deposit money in bank accounts in Hong Kong or China, where API representatives told them they would send the money to Switzerland, they said.
    Exceeding Controls
    Some of the individual investments totaled more than 1 million yuan ($161,000), according to a report by China Central Television. China’s capital controls limit the amount that can be taken out of the country to $50,000 a person per year.
    After the money in their online API accounts disappeared, investors said they received a message from the company saying it had been hacked, urging patience and time for API to restore balances and compensate customers. After that, they were unable to contact company representatives, they said.
    Investors in Hong Kong staged a protest outside a police station in Kowloon demanding stepped-up efforts, according to photos on a website created by API’s investors to share information, which didn’t post the date.
    High Court
    A lawsuit against a company called API Premiere Ltd. filed in Hong Kong’s High Court by investor Sun Zhiming said a representative of API approached him on an instant-messaging service. Sun then invested HK$147 million ($19 million) for gold and foreign-currency trading, which disappeared, the suit said. API Premiere’s director listed in the Hong Kong Companies Registry is Ong Chew Hoon of Singapore.
    “People around the country are still suffering from the scam”
    Visits to listed Singapore and Hong Kong residences for Ong didn’t locate him, with one address proving to be false. A mobile phone number for Ong provided by investors isn’t in service. Police spokesmen in Singapore and Hong Kong wouldn’t comment on whether Ong is the subject of an investigation.
    Hong Kong police are investigating 136 complaints of suspected fraud from investors who said they invested a total of HK$415 million with API, according to a police spokeswoman who didn’t give her name due to policy.
    Over the past two years, API’s representatives pitched investments in Hong Kong and China, hosted an investor event in Singapore -- offering free flights and five-star accommodation - - and gave incentives for people to draw in their friends, according to the investors.
    Yachts, Ferrari
    API’s website cites a history in Switzerland stretching back 59 years, services including algorithmic trading and wealth management, and offices in Geneva, Zurich and Hong Kong, with Shanghai “coming soon.” Its explanation of foreign-exchange trading was taken from Wikipedia. Its promotional video shows luxury yachts on Lake Geneva, traders at computer screens and a Chinese man identifying himself as the vice president of greater China for API climbing into the passenger seat of a Ferrari so that the “boss,” whose face isn’t visible, can show him around.
    Turning up unannounced in Switzerland in March, the Chinese investor group “made a desperate whistle-stop tour of the public prosecutor, the financial regulator and the Chinese embassy in search of a remedy,” said Franco Foglia, a lawyer in Geneva who was also among those who met with the investors in their search for help.
    “I was convinced they are the victims of a fraud, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be to find justice for a scam they barely understand in a country whose language and culture they don’t understand,” said Foglia. “Whoever these fraudsters are, they obviously misused Switzerland’s strong reputation in Asia to lure people to invest their money.”

  3. #3
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  4. #4
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    Yes, agree with you that there are many lousy investment products.

    It's weird to me that some can trust the highly unregulated products for high promised gains but total losses when we have a highly regulated product that has much protection although gains are not guaranteed.

    Each has his investment strategy though. Some excel in stocks for example.
    The three laws of Kelonguni:

    Where there is kelong, there is guni.
    No kelong no guni.
    More kelong = more guni.

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