Thousands of Poor Manipuri's Fall Victim To ‘Get Rich Quick’ Malaysian Company Scam

Kuala Lumpur, Sep 6 : Over 70,000 investors, mostly farmers and petty traders from the India’s north-eastern state of Manipur, have fallen victim to the multi-million ringgit pyramid scam in Malaysia.

The nature of business of the four-year-old Selangor-based private limited company has been described as “general trading and investment”, The Star reports.

“Most of the investors are poor people while some politicians and bureaucrats have also invested in the schemes. People sold their properties, land and invested their savings,” Brojen Sinam, president of United Investors Trust, a body set up to address victims' grievances, said.

In 2009, the company hired local agents in the impoverished Manipur to launch its “get-rich-quick” schemes.

“In the first year, investors received good returns and were given gold coins. That gave them confidence to invest more. But in the last three months, no payment has been made and all the agents went missing.

Most of the poor people do not know what to do. We are appealing to politicians and the Indian Government to help recover the money,” Sinam added. 

Meanwhile, the Imphal police has confirmed the scam, adding that investigations are in progress.

“They have lodged an FIR (First Information Report prepared by the police based on complaints) on several companies that have cheated them here.

We were told the group's headquarters is in Malaysia but most of the agents are now outside Manipur or escaped to Malaysia,” an investigating officer who declined to be identified, said.