Update (Dec 3) : “Bank Negara has revealed that more than 8,000 customers of gold investment company Genneva Malaysia Sdn Bhd have yet to receive their gold amounting to over 4,000kg, despite having settled the payments.
In a statement on Monday, the bank added that documents seized from the company also revealed that some customers, who had surrendered their gold to the company, had not received their cash reimbursements amounting to more than RM80mil in total.
“Initial forensic accounting has uncovered considerable losses experienced by the company in 2012. The company has liabilities exceeding 10 times its assets.” (“Bank Negara: 8,000 Genneva customers failed to get gold even after they paid“, The Star Online, Dec 3)
Rescue plan for investors?
I refer to the article “Genneva’s troubles ‘known for months’ – Gold trader offering
‘rescue plan’ says he heard of its woes a year ago” (Straits Times, Oct 4).
According to the ‘rescue plan’ gold trader’s web site, it was offering at a gold price of S$77.60 under its “GV rescue plan”.
Lower mark-up and monthly returns?
This is a mark up of about 10 per cent on the current gold price.
Why would anyone who lost money under Genneva’s about 20 per cent marked-up gold price and a promise of 2 per cent return per month, fall for this new offer to pay a 10 per cent mark-up with a new promise of 1.2 per cent a month?
Investor Alert List
By the way, the ‘rescue plan’ gold trader is also on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s
Unregulated investments
I wonder how many people know that they should also check the Investor Alert List for investment schemes that are unregulated in Singapore.
Sunshine Empire
In this connection, when I brought the New Paper journalist to Sunshine Empire’s office a few years ago, to break the story on its investment scheme, about 15,000 investors have lost about $160 million.
According to the report “‘Up to $4b’ pumped into Genneva gold scheme” (Straits Times, Oct 31), ” KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – A gold-trading business shut down this month by the Malaysian authorities for suspected illegalities may have raised as much as RM10 billion (S$4 billion) from its clients, a government official said on Wednesday.”
So, with reportedly estimates of about 10,000 investors involved in Singapore, how much in total are we talking about?
Biggest investment scam ever?
Could this turn out to be the biggest investment scam in the history of Singapore?
I understand from a source that before the Commercial Affairs Department’s (CAD) investigation, the sums invested were as much as $500 million, and the firm had at its peak about $100 million in cash and about 1,000 kg of physical gold.
How much of these monies are still there to be recovered to compensate investors?
What can we do to prevent such scams from happening again, as they seem to surface almost every year in Singapore? For example, there have been media reports on such schemes involving unregulated investments in oilpods, wine, art, etc.
Leong Sze Hian
