Thailand Investigations Blog
Do You Want to Know the Truth?

With so many people falling into the trap of business scams, you would think that people would know better than to fall victim to similar scams, but no.

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A client of mine runs a big wholesale business and was approached by a long time friend who was offering and opportunity to get into the export business. Now, import and export business do earn big bucks, but you also need a large initial capital. The friend presented a lot of documents and presentations which “seemed” professional and authentic enough, and so the client was convinced. The return of investment was pretty high, and so the client really was very excited to invest. The first few months seemed okay, with money coming in regularly. But then one month, the friend suddenly reported that his contact ran away with the money. Our client, suspicious of the sudden change, asked us to look into the matter.

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We investigated, and it turns out that the “friend” was pooling money from different people and simply remitting the “earnings” back to them on an installment basis – eg. twice a month. There was no real business, and the bulk of the money way stolen and scammed away by the person.

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Sound familiar? Yes, we have talked about this before – the infamous Ponzi scheme. As we said, the criminal just pools money from different “investors” and remits the “profit” to the clients at pre-arranged dates of the month. Let’s say you “invest” a capital of USD 10,000, with a monthly interest of 20% a month meaning you get USD 2,000 a month in profit. In the Ponzi scheme, the scammer encourages the clients to invest more and more until eventually, the game goes bust and the scammer disappears into thin air.

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Now, our client is struggling to pay his debt – the money he loaned to invest in the scheme – and is hard pressed to keep his other business up. It is not a pretty picture. Based on the evidence we collected for him, he is planning to file a case against his “friend”.

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But really, the damage here has already been done. The money is long gone and spent, and it is highly unlikely that it will be recovered in full, if recovered at all. The best that can be expected is for the criminal to go to jail. While that can be considered justice, it is still a fact that they money is still lost and gone.

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Securing your investments should be the very first thing on your mind when you invest. No matter how good documents look or how professional the presentation may seem, it is no guarantee – lots of things can be forged and faked. This is why you need an investigative service that will look into things to confirm whether or not the claims are true. We are talking of lots of hard-earned money here, so it is only prudent that you take the necessary steps to ensure that your money is going into good hands.