The scam that rattled high society

(Photo credit: AFP)

I missed seeing this article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer when it came out in end-March, but I think it’s worthy enough to be shared again in MoneySmarts, just in case you guys missed reading it too.

Say it with me. “If it’s too good to be true…”

Enjoy reading!

(For those who want to blog about this or forward to friends, please link back to MoneySmarts or the page where the article was published. Stealing content is a crime against your own personal integrity. It’s not worth it ☺)

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The scam that rattled high society

By Marge C. Enriquez
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:08:00 03/30/2008

MANILA, Philippines - If it’s too good to be true, then it’s not true,” Carrie (not her real name), a businesswoman, says, breaking into nervous laughter.

She is referring to the illusion of easy returns from risky speculative investments. In July 2007, news broke of a scandal involving the Singaporean boss of a foreign exchange trading firm who was suspected of running away with some US$250 million of investors’ funds.

The people who invested were the powerful, the rich and the beautiful.

Every time the Performance Investment Products Corporation (PIPC) scam is brought up, Samantha (not her real name), also a businesswoman, prefers to wax philosophical: “I made so much money. I was devastated but it took some time to heal. We have to go on with our lives.”

In 1998, Michael “Mike” Liew, the Singaporean owner, established PIPC as an online foreign exchange trading firm in the Philippines. Carrie was invited by a friend to an introductory lecture of the PIPC by Liew at Hotel Intercontinental.

People were asked to put in a minimum of US$40,000 in a trading scheme staking on gains or losses in pairs of currencies. The PIPC traders did business on these monies.

Carrie was attracted by the guaranteed return of 10-15 percent every maturity period of eight weeks, or an average annual return of 12 percent a year.

“With $40,000 and a 12-percent return after eight weeks, you could earn $5,000,” says Carrie.

Warning

Before Carrie could invest, a banker-friend warned her it could be a scam. The banker found it anomalous that an investor would dispatch the money to Hong Kong and would not get a deposit slip in the investor’s name.

“Let’s say you remitted through Citibank which, in turn, remitted to ABN-Amro in Hong Kong,” Carrie says.

“You get a confirmation from PIPC, not from ABN-Amro. It’s a laminated plastic receipt stating you are an investor of PIPC of $40,000, plus your remittance and the account number.”

After the Intercon presentation, the banker, now convinced of the scheme, suggested they try a joint account, starting with $20,000 each.

“We began making good money and would share it,” Carrie says. “She said, ‘Let’s go on separate ways because our dividend is nice. We don’t lose anything because every eight weeks, we get back our money.’ PIPC sends a notice saying that your deposit is maturing on this day. If you don’t want to roll it, just advise the office and you will get your money in your bank account. We tried it. Sure enough, we recovered our money. As the years went buy, she put more and more.”

Somebody went to Singapore to scrutinize PIPC’s operations. He reported that it was listed in the stock exchange and gave his nod to invest. The circle of investors felt more secure about his endorsement so that they increased their deposits.

When Carrie went to Shanghai, she checked out PIPC’s office and was also impressed that it was in a swank building that had Louis Vuitton and Gucci as tenants.

Word got around in high society. In the late ’90s, Samantha approached a PIPC trader and expressed her interest in the scheme.

Carrie and Samantha felt they were in good hands since they had known most of the PIPC employees for a long time, and many of them came from respectable families.
Dividends

Carrie also saw Liew, who was always conservatively dressed in a suit and wearing a Rolex or a Patek Philippe. He motivated his employees to work hard so that PIPC would be another Merrill Lynch.

The firm’s transactions were very organized. “Let’s say PIPC traded on March 1 and made $400 for you, minus the commission and management fees, your net was $260,” Carrie says.

“They gave each investor one trading sheet per week. It would be summarized every two weeks so that you could see the progress of the trade. PIPC deposits your interest to your bank account. You don’t touch the money. The bank will tell you there’s a deposit of $800 or $1,000 in your dollar account. The sheet informs you of the next maturity date.

“Every eight weeks PIPC sends the trading sheet. They e-mail or mail a sheet, how much you’ve made during the eight-week period. It states your next maturity date. If you don’t want to roll it over, advise the office two weeks before. If you want your capital of $40,000 back, tell the office. They will remit it to your bank account. Even if you don’t roll it, you will get your interest,” says Carrie.

“I never saw the dividends dwindling. They were just inconsistent. PIPC made us believe that our shares depended on the trade. I even got a zero in an eight-week period in October 2006. Before that I got a $2,200 dividend. At the end of 12 months, I still got 12.5 percent annual return.”

Perks

PIPC knew how to win its investors. On the first year, they were given a $50 bonus, and were gifted with luxury items such as Hermés scarves and free foreign magazine subscriptions.

The first Christmas party was at the Peninsula Hotel ballroom, attended by the high and the mighty.

“We were in good company,” exclaims Samantha. In the next three years, the Christmas parties were held in five-star ballrooms.

When the big parties stopped, PIPC sent cards to the investors saying that in lieu of a party, the money would be given to charity. The recipient even sent thank-you cards to the investors, making them feel that part of their money was used for noble causes.

In another year, the Philippine General Hospital gave Liew a plaque for his generosity in the renovation of its obstetrics and gynecology wing. He dedicated the project to family members who had died in the tsunami in Thailand.

Carrie was impressed with the firm’s growth. PIPC started with a simple office at the Antel building until operations expanded to two floors. Then it moved to the Citibank Tower, where it even had a plush lounge.

Investors could enjoy free coffee, pastries, wines and canapés. It had offices in Singapore, Japan, India and China and, eventually, Cebu.

“You felt safe because our capital was guaranteed,” says Carrie. They were made to believe that an investor not earning anything was the worst-case scenario.

When the business evolved with a second money scheme, the money game became precarious.

“In Plan A, you got 60 percent while the company got 40 percent. If a trader made $1,000 for you in the eight-week period, your net interest would be $600, while $400 went to the office. Your $40,000 was still intact.

“With Plan B, you got 80 percent while the organization got 20 percent. But the risk was that the capital was no longer guaranteed. If the trader lost, you shared in his losses. At the end of an eight-week period, you could have $39,000 instead of your $40,000 because your trader lost $1,000. But you could still recover in the next period. Many took Plan B,” says Carrie.

Addicting

Many investors opened several accounts so that they would get more dividends in shorter intervals. There was talk that one of the biggest investors was a low-key Chinese businessman who put in $5 million.

While well-meaning friends, financial experts and businessmen cautioned Samantha of fraudulent money schemes, the immediate gratification was addicting. Lured by temptation, she kept holding off the withdrawal of her accounts.

The friendly service of PIPC and Liew’s charisma won people over.

“The relationship was based on trust. For nine years, the company showed good performance with the interests that it was giving you. You would not have one iota of doubt about the company,” says Carrie.

Massage parlor

On July 17, 2007, Carrie’s account executive informed her that Liew was missing. At first, she thought it was irrelevant. The AE explained that money was not coming in for the company to distribute among the investors and to pay the salaries of its employees.

Liew’s mother supposedly put him on a missing persons’ list. Finally, Liew reportedly called his mother after two weeks and said she should go to the United States.

Newspaper reports would eventually state that Liew had fled with the money. The bank accounts that held the investments of Carrie, Samantha and thousands of others had been cleared out.

PIPC’s Singapore office pointed out that the missing funds had been kept in three banks and that Liew had closed an account in Hong Kong.

Publications quoted the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission as saying that PIPC was registered with controllers, but it was not a legitimate foreign exchange trading firm.

The High Court of Hong Kong hired Ferrier Hodgson, a company specializing in financial investigations and frauds, forensic accounting and IT and business assessment, as provisional liquidator of PIPC.

Initial findings revealed that PIPC lacked accounting books and records. Control was in the hands of a few and that only Liew knew how the funds flowed. He also manipulated the bank accounts of the investors’ funds.

More shocking was that trading had stopped in 2004, yet new investors were still coming in.

Ferrier Hodgson investigated the three banks in Hong Kong where deposits had been made. The report also revealed that the PIPC office in Singapore Land Tower had not been used for a month, yet there were arrangements for calls and mails. However, calls were forwarded to a discontinued number and the mail address was a massage parlor.

Devastated and outraged, the Philippine investors held meetings. Samantha had already pulled out some of her money before Liew’s escape. She was about to deposit again, but could not contact her AE. Although she was grateful that she had been spared huge losses, she was still confounded.

The meetings merely distressed her more. Many investors wanted to get even.

“They had their own way of dealing with the scandal. I just forgot about it. That’s money gone forever,” sighs Samantha.

Broken lives

“The real character of people came out,” says Carrie. “Some sued the account executives and officers even if they were good friends or relatives. But they had signed a contract stating that the AE was not culpable. We invested on our own volition. How could I blame Mike [Liew] or the AE?”

Couples split, blaming each other for their financial mess. A mother had a son who was an AE. After putting in money and gaining from it, she placed more. Then she died. During the meeting for the inheritance, the children were left with very little assets. She had put all her money in PIPC.

A friend consolidated her stocks, sold them and put the money in PIPC a month before it fell. She did not even get a single interest. That money was meant to be a down payment for her son’s apartment in New York to start him off after graduation.

Many lost face (aside from their jobs or retirement money) for referring friends to or brokering an account with PIPC; their friends never forgave them.

On the other hand, there were those who took the fiasco positively. Carrie says: “It was a wake-up call for many. Maybe God was telling us to stop being materialistic and to look into our real values. If you have so much, greed comes in… The moment I let go, I became peaceful.”

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