WHILE 1MDB poses a real economic and reputational risk to national money, dubious investments schemes do the same at a lower, more direct level. While these schemes have gone on for a long time, the size and influence of these schemes have reached alarming proportions – supermarkets and branch offices and public functions even kitschier glam than your average MLM award night.

While some go into these money ‘games’ knowing exactly what they are doing and believing they are playing the system and as such, deserve little sympathy, sadly, the bulk of the victims genuinely believe they are investing in something real.

And the scale of losses is simply staggering.

JJPTR alone manages, at the very least, RM1.7 billion (the amount of losses it claimed it sustained through ‘hacking’) out of 300,000 people. How they managed to accumulate that sum, without as much as a deposit-taking license, for so long is scary to say the least.

It’s all well and good as long as people are making money, but the second it collapses – all hell breaks loose, and now JJPTR’s founder and his managers are being passed around by the police in different states to investigate the string of reports against them.

JJPTR is but one of many illegal money games operating out of Malaysia across many years. Swiss Cash, YSLM and Genneva Gold are some examples of recent occurrences. This problem has been here since the 70s, along with miracle hair products and chain letters.  

Genneva Gold’s scam was estimated to be in the region of RM12 billion before it was busted by Bank Negara and half a dozen other enforcement agencies. This happened just a year before JJPTR.

Swiss Cash, a scam from the mid- 2000s, is believed to have duped 55,000 people before the two masterminds were arrested.

YSLM’s ‘richest man in the world’ founder was only charged after cheating RM605 million from the public across multiple countries, and the total losses are estimated to be far more. He was arrested in Thailand.

VenusFX got away with RM80 million from 23,000 people before it was taken down.

Even the religious-flavoured scam, the Mecca Fund, managed to get 100,000 investors before the law caught up to it.

The question that arises is this; why does it take so long for these scammers to be exposed?

Apart from the widely publicised ones, there are also smallish ones limited to a state or even a town.

Besides Forex, there are schemes masquerading as MLMs or structured investments for anything and everything ranging from perfumes to gaharu wood to grocery shops to farming to fish breeding.

A few years ago, even a famous mamak shop was implicated in one such fraud.

Bank Negara maintains a growing list of such money scams, which now stands at 288, up from 271 last year, and around 250 the year before.

There is little point to having multiple agencies meant to safeguard our money, to the point that even bank forms are identical, if on the other hand, you’ve got international scams running billion dollar operations out of our own country.

If enforcement is difficult, perhaps more could be done on education.

Social responsibility also plays an important role.

These scams often sneakily operate in collaboration with NGOs, corporations, and are known to hold charity and social events with local grassroots political leaders and celebrities. If these organisations and individuals are aware of the dubious natures of these schemes, it is unconscionable for them to knowingly be part of these events and functions. Perhaps the law should be tightened to allow for these ‘influencers’ to be prosecuted as well.

Malaysia aims to be a hub of a lot of things – low cost flights, halal products, regional IT and Islamic banking, and the list goes on. Indeed, we do have the potential to achieve many of them.

International money scams should not be in that list. – May 23, 2017. 

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.