It would seemed that Sunshine Empire has made it to the
Indonesia Blacklist as well.
I can't read Indonesian, so can't find the official website.
But here's the english article from
asiaview.org:-
AsiaViews, Edition: 51/IV/Jan/2008
The dirty
dozen investment businesses
A task force headed by Bapepam-LK issued a black
list of 12 investment companies. Some of them protested but others
were unconcerned and just continued working.
THE dream of becoming rich is always extremely viable. Find this
difficult to believe? Just type "get-quick investment" into the
Google search engine, and lots of websites offering ways of getting
rich quickly and easily-sometimes without even having to work-will
pop up.
In order to grab customers, lots of unrealistic promises are made,
many of which are very far indeed from common sense. One website
owner even stated that he was able to make Rp2 million each and
every day without breaking any sweat. In a period of just one year
he acknowledged he was able to amass some Rp1.6 billion. And in
order to be more convincing, shots of pages from a bank book filled
with transactions are shown.
Another website, megadana.com, promises a profit of 0.3 percent per
day, or 9.2 per month, non-stop for all of one's life. Compare this
with the interest on a deposit account that is only in the region
of 6 percent per year. This offer is clearly tantalizing. In short,
like they say on comedy shows, it's really exciting?
On a larger scale, there's Sunshine Empire Indonesia. This
investment company is part of the Empire Group Alliance, which was
set up by James Phang, a citizen of Singapore. It has offices in
Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South
Korea and Japan.
There are two ways of joining Sunshine, either through a
partnership or as a merchant. Listen to what happened to Mochamad
Masrur, 28, a merchant with Sunshine. One year ago, he deposited
US$150 with Sunshine in order to become a bronze merchant in
Surabaya, East Java.
In return, he received points for buying products sold by Emall,
including electronic goods, healthcare products and vitamins.
Profits are made from commissions on signing up new merchants. In
less than half a year, he was able to earn enough to renovate his
parents' home and buy a Toshiba portable computer. "But for the
last three months I have not been active," he said. "There's a
business that's even more profitable."
Another choice is through a partnership. The cheapest package is
the bronze partnership, worth US$330 (Rp3.13 million), and the most
expensive the gold partnership US$6,600 (Rp62.7 million). This is
the same as capital participation in a Sunshine-affiliated
company.
These participants' funds are invested in one of Sunshine's
affiliates, such as Emcom Worldwide, Emcom Technology, Empire
Venture Property and Emall Empire. Clients are promised fantastic
profits: they will get their capital back in just eight months. And
what's more, they then don't have to do anything while the money
rolls in.
Seeing so very many offers being made by these "investment fund
managers," the Capital Market & Financial Institutions
Supervisory Board (Bapepam-LK) carried out an investigation
secretly. The rather unsavory results of this were released by this
government department at the end of December last year.
In a press release at the end
of last year, Bapepam-LK stated that there were at least 12 illegal
investment companies. Sunshine is at the top of the
list. According to Bapepam-LK's Ahmad Fuad Rahmany,
this list was the result of work carried out by a task force given
the job of handling suspected illegal acts in investment
management.
Wahyu Hidayat, who heads up the task force, stated that this list
was prepared based on input from members of the general public,
both through SMS as well as emails sent to the task force's website
at http://waspada-investasi.bapepam.go.id.
The task force, which includes representatives from Bapepam-LK,
Bank Indonesia, the Commodities Futures Trading Supervisory Body,
the Financial Transactions Reporting & Analysis Center, the
Department of Trade, and the National Police (Polri), was set up on
June 20 last year.
The task force's job is to supervise and take action against false
investment companies. "There being so many makes things complicated
for us," said Wahyu on Thursday last week. These companies include
PT Gamasmart Fund Karya Utama, PT Platinum Investment, PT Wealth
Max Centric Solusindo and PT Kharisma Tiga Sarana.
It's fair to say that the setting-up of this task force was
overdue. This is because there have already been many cases of
investment fraud and trillions of rupiah of investors' funds have
vanished after the collapse of investment companies.
At the beginning of 2007, for example, thousands of customers of
Dressel Investment Limited, an investment company based in the
British Virgin Islands, were unable to do anything when the company
was closed down. Customers' funds amounting to around Rp3 trillion
vanished. Before this, there were similar cases involving the
customers of Inter Bank Bisnis Terencana (Ibist) and Probest.
Compared to Malaysia, Bapepam-LK is a long way behind. For several
years now, the capital market authority of Malaysia has routinely
published investor alerts that created a list of false investment
companies.
The Securities Commission of Malaysia has even gone further. Since
June last year, working together with the Communications and
Multimedia Commission, this Malaysian capital market authority has
closed down websites proved of selling false investment products
such as www.abbfund.com and www.swedenfund.com.
One problem that up until now has often been the case in Indonesia
is uncertainty over who is responsible for acting against those
involved in these investments. "In the past there certainly often
was confusion over responsibility," said Wahyu Hidayat.
It was because of this that the task force was set up with the role
of deciding who will deal with which investment violations. If
these involve the capital market, then Bapepam-LK will handle them.
If banking practices are involved, then the central bank will be in
charge, while if they are to do with the commodity exchange, then
these will be handled by the Futures Exchange Supervisory Board
(Bappebti). If, however, criminal acts are concerned, the police
will be in charge.
So far, no measures have yet been taken against the 12 investment
companies that have been blacklisted. According to Wahyu, the task
force is carrying out further verification and it is targeted that
this will be completed this month.
The announcement of this list of a dozen false investment companies
immediately led to protests. One of these was from Anwar Eddy
Hartono, the boss of PT Berkat Lestari. This partner of Mitra
OilPods International that markets these investments in oil fields
has not stopped wondering how this company could be placed on the
Bapepam-LK black list.
According to Eddy, the company only provides investment information
and as such is not an investment company. "Not one single cent of
customers' money ends up in our bank account," he said. All funds
belonging to customers are directly transferred to the owner of the
well, the Powder River Basin Gas Corporation.
Riza Wibawa, the boss of Brankas Wealth Management, also made a
similar comment. He stated that Brankas has never collected public
funds. "We are only a financial consultant," he said.
The attitude of Sunshine Empire was far calmer. It seems as if this
company just ignored the announcement by Bapepam-LK. This was
despite the fact that in addition to being placed on Bapepam-LK's
list of illegal investment companies, Sunshine was also listed on
investor alerts from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the
Securities Commission of Malaysia.
The Singapore Department of Police Commercial Affairs, a special
unit that handles white-collar crimes, is also currently
investigating Sunshine. These three institutions are advising that
the general public does not invest in Sunshine.
When Tempo visited Sunshine's office in the Kota Grogol Permai
office complex, Jakarta, last week, several would-be investors
still appeared to be listening attentively to the explanations
given by Sunshine staff. "Our activities have not been disturbed,"
said Pandhu, one of Sunshine's marketing staff.
He did not seem to be that worried about the announcement made by
Bapepam-LK. "Later, my boss will provide you with full
clarification," he said. But unfortunately, up until last Friday,
there was no news whatsoever from the boss of Sunshine Indonesia,
Samuel Herman Furama.
What is clear is that the activities of this company are quite
normal. Sunshine's marketing agenda continues as usual. On Monday
last week, Sunshine's management made a presentation at its office
in Surabaya. This will be followed by more presentations at the
Bandung office on Wednesday and on Monday next week at the Novotel
Hotel Yogyakarta. "It's not that we do not know about the warnings
from Bapepam-LK or the Singapore capital market authority," said
Masrur. "What is important is that investors are aware what the
risks are."
Illegal investment
companies