Hundreds of investors, including 651 from Malaysia, have been conned out of millions by a property company that is suspected to be involved in Ponzi scheme, reported ABC.
This comes after Singapore-based Macro Realty Developments Pte Ltd, which is controlled by Australian Veronica Macpherson, offered investments to finance property developments in Pilbara, Western Australia, promising returns as high as 18 percent annually.
However, the investment scheme collapsed in 2016, with the company owing creditors over A$200 million (RM679.9 million).
Notably, the investment scheme has been heavily promoted in Malaysia and Singapore since 2014, with the promotional material indicating that the company had other sources of revenue and that guarantors owned land parcels – all of which were not true.
In fact, the Singapore police is investigating the company.
The winding up of Macro was part of the case filed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) against the controversial company with the Australian Federal Court.
Court documents showed that almost A$110 million (RM374 million) was raised by the alleged Ponzi scheme from over 1,700 investors, who were told that their money were used for property developments but were actually used to pay company expenses, including interest payments to early investors.
With not enough new business to meet its growing expenses, the scheme collapsed forcing Macro to stop interest payments to investors.
Aside from the Malaysians, there were also 981 investors from Singapore, 17 from Europe, 58 from the UK and 31 from Australia.
The Australian Federal Court wound up Macpherson’s other active companies in Australia, while her passport and financial services licence were cancelled following the collapse.
Image sourced from AsiaOne
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