My name is Steven Tan. I
am currently working as an engineer in Singapore.
In January 2013, I have
known this guy Alfred through a friend. He claimed that he was
doing some big business and knew a lot of big people. He said he
was looking for investors and persuaded me to join him. Seeing my
friend had also put in a lot of money into Alfred’s business, I was
persuaded by him and passed him my savings of SGD 50,000.
Since then, we had met for
a few times privately. He behaved like a rich guy and had been
quite generous when paying bills for meal. He had even showed me
his newly bought Toyota Camry and assured me that the business was
going smoothly. He also told me that he had another 50 to 60
investors with him, so the risk was minimum.
In May 2013, Alfred told
me that there was a big opportunity and asked me to put in more
money with him. When I told him I didn’t have the cash, he
persuaded me to take bank loans. I was reluctant initially, but he
was persistent and eventually persuaded me. I had signed up an
overdraft of SGD 150,000 and passed it to him. He said he will pay
for the interest plus give me the profit monthly.
In August 2013, Alfred
stopped paying the interest. He told me the business didn’t go well
and he had lost a lot of money. He even asked me to lend him more
money to recover his business. When I refused and asked him to
return me the money, he kept delaying and finally told me that he
could only return me SGD 10,000 and the rest have to wait until he
had sorted things out.
My friend is facing the
same problems, and he is only earning about SGD 2000 per month.
After putting in all his savings, Alfred managed to persuade him to
go to several different banks and took up loan of around SGD 70,000
to 80,000. When Alfred stopped paying the interest, he were going
to bankrupt if not his parents took out their life savings and
saved him. The worst part, Alfred asked my friend to lend him money
using reasons such as need more cash to revive the business and
need some cash to settle some debt. Out of friendship and kindness,
my friend not only used his own money to lend to Alfred, but also
borrowed from his friend to lend to Alfred. Alfred kept promising
that he would return the money next week or next month, but the
truth is he would use some excuses to delay and in the end not
paying my friend a single cent.
My friend told me he’s
going to make police report because he felt like being cheated.
After some discussion, we think that this is a Ponzi scheme, or
Alfred was not doing business all along and used the money on
something illegal.
If you have any friends or family working or staying in Singapore
or JB, please let them know about this guy. If you are a victim of
his scheme, I urge you to go to report to police in Singapore to
protect yourself. If he is really doing something illegal and is
caught, only those who have reported to police will be innocent,
otherwise, you may become his accomplice. Last I heard, people have
gone to report police and the police are actively investigating the
case. If Alfred happens to contact you to get money from you, you
better say no and protect your money.
Please share this out so that no one will be his next victim.
Summary of Alfred’s method of operation:
1. He
will tell you he runs a big business and persuade you to put in
money with him.
2. After
gaining your trust, he will persuade you to go to several banks to
take up bank loans.
3. Then,
he will tell you that he is facing some problems and will start to
borrow money from you, and ask you to go and borrow more from your
friends and family. All the money that you have put in with him
will be conveniently lost.
4. He
will come out with plans and ideas to recover the lost money, but
all of them need you to put more money into them. If you still
trust him, you will bleed to death eventually because he will break
all of his promises and you won’t get back a single cent.
Description:
Alfred (I think his surname is Loi or Lei),
age around 40 to 50, tall and big size. He was driving in his black
Toyota Camry when I saw him last. His phone numbers last four
digits are 9076 and 9340.
