Why promoters of dubious schemes are liable for investors' losses

Case of couple who lured victims into 'safe and profitable' scheme serves as a warning

- Tan Ooi Boon

Crime does not pay, and neither does deception by those who make false claims to lure people into dubious financial schemes.

In what seems like a warning to those who promote dubious schemes to investors, the Appellate Division of the High Court recently ordered a Singapore couple to pay a $6 million compensation for misleading a victim of a Ponzi scam into thinking that it was "safe and profitable".

The ruling should make us all sit up and take note, because the couple did not create the scam but were early participants who cashed out before the scheme collapsed.

Appeal judges Steven Chong and Debbie Ong found that the couple - Ken Wan and wife Sally Ho - were "influential figures" who used their experience of turning their initial outlay of about $77,000 into mind-boggling profits of $7 million to $10 million as a sales pitch to lure more investors. Other investors called the couple "Teacher Ken" and "Teacher Sally" and revered them as rainmakers who were rewarded with a Ferrari sports car and a yacht for raking in about 70 per cent of the scheme's earnings.

But there were red flags aplenty from the word go. Even the scheme's name - "SureWin4U" - should have made any savvy investor avoid it like the plague. Yet the scam started by Malaysian brothers Peter and Philip Ong managed to con many people here and abroad before the pair vanished in 2014 after it all collapsed.

Investors were sold a script that seemed almost like the Hong Kong blockbuster movie God Of Gamblers, with the duo professing to know the formula to always win at casinos, especially in the card game baccarat.

They claimed to have a team of professional gamblers who would reap jackpot after jackpot at the gaming tables with their "surewin" formula.

In reality, there were no gamblers and the winnings that early investors pocketed came from fresh funds from new investors, a classic Ponzi move.