Batswana lose millions in another investment scam

 

Investors in Botswana have been exposed to an investment scam by a shady organisation known as Eurex Trade PTY LTD, which robs them of their hard earned cash.

The scam is known as the ‘Ponzi Scheme’. It is run by a group of people who are said to have accumulated more illegal financial wisdom than all the financial experts in the world. What happens is that the organised criminals, lure people to their investment scam by promising them attractive and high yields at a short period of time.

The group would then use the money to finance their illegal trades and practices like to fund the illegal running of guns, extortion and corruption.They’ve also been involved in shady dealings with oilrigs and pharmaceuticals. The scheme promises investors high daily returns that are too good to be true.

They are told that they can request Invested Principal Amount at any time and that there is a guarantee of up to 2.9 percent of Daily Investor’s Share Earnings and Profits paid on a daily basis. As good as it sounds, investment experts have rubbished such claims as scams and non-existent. Richard Harriman, a Consumer Watchdog Columnist in local newspapers said the people behind EurexTrade are an organised fraudulent group of criminals.

“The organisers have a history of running another Ponzi scheme called Rockford Funding that the US Securities and Exchange Commission claimed had stolen over $10 million from “investors” and transferred to banks in Latvia,” he said.Harriman said it was simply impossible to earn 2.9 percent per day.

He said reinvesting the earned interest comes to an annual percentage rate of over 3,000,000 percent, which has never happened and will never ever happen. “There is no legitimate investment scheme that consistently makes that sort of profit. There isn’t, there never has been and there never will be. If there was such a scheme don’t you think the banks, the bankrupt Greek Government and investment companies around the world would be doing it as well?” he asked rhetorically.

“All investments carry risk. This is particularly the case with high return investments (the golden adage is risk=reward). There is a risk with any investment and full disclosure of the particular investment proposal should make that clear. 

Any investment with very high rates of return that are represented as “guaranteed” should be treated with extreme caution and suspicion,” said Melville Stuart Brown, Deputy Chief Executive at the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBIFIRA).

“I’ve heard from people who have “invested” their life savings in EurexTrade, about people who cashed in insurance policies, savings schemes and their pensions to “invest” in EurexTrade. I’ve even heard of people who have got loans from their bank to do so,” Harriman added. Apparently the EurexTrade refuses to give any clues about how they might make the money.

They use phrases like “longer term, global events driven long term profitable projections” and “in house developed trading algorithms” which apparently is just their way of hiding the fact that there is no investment scheme in EurexTrade.

“EurexTrade is a Ponzi scheme. Universally, Ponzi schemes are scams that pay initial investors with proceeds from new investors under the guise that they are making an actual business investment, when in fact the underlying business is non-existent or unsuccessful. 

Eventually, there are not enough newcomers to pay the existing investors, and the scheme falls apart,” said Brown. The authority released a warning previously against doing business with EurexTrade scheme. Brown said, Batswana, especially elder people in pensions are usually the target, so they could withdraw their life savings and invest into the sham scheme.

“I’ve heard in the last week of several people who have “invested” over P100, 000 in this scheme. One reader’s mother invested P500, 000,” Harriman backed Brown. They both said that they have heard from reputable financial advisors and investment companies that their clients are cashing in their genuine investments to throw them away in this scheme.

The amounts of money flowing towards this scheme are staggering.EurexTrade is a company registered in 2004 in Panama. Three other companies, Ireland & Overseas Acquisitions Ltd, Milltown Corporate Services Ltd and Inhold Ltd, own it. It’s the first two companies that are most interesting.

In 2007 these two companies, both of which are registered in the British Virgin Islands, were involved in chartering a ship that travelled from Eastern Europe to Mombasa in Kenya.There’s nothing particularly wrong with that except that the cargo appears to have been weapons destined for rebels in South Sudan who were then under an international arms embargo. “The people behind EurexTrade appear to be illegal arms traders,” said Harriman