Press Digest - Victims who invested heavily in schemes approach gangsters to recover money

PETALING JAYA: Following the revelation that there is an element of cheating involved in the Nanning Investment Scheme, it is learnt some of those who have invested heavily have approached the underworld to help them recover their money.
Nanning Investment Scheme, which was all the rage some time ago in the southern peninsula with promise of very attractive returns from so-called property investment in Nanning, China, is now shunned like the plague despite lowering the minimum investment from more than RM100,000 to just RM38,000.
The recent fatal shooting of a businesswoman, which put Nanning Investment Scheme under the spotlight, has prompted many new investors to demand their money back, Oriental Daily News reported today, quoting sources.
The uplines, who find it impossible to refund these investors, are in jitters fearing that their downlines would resort to brutal force.
According to the report, the owner of a car dealer in Johor who had recruited many investors are one of the many in such a predicament because his downlines, who find it hard to get new investors due to bad publicity of the scheme, feel cheated and are hiring gangsters to get back their investment.
It is learnt that despite the scheme's rule that a new member can get back his initial investment by producing three recruits or loses his investment if none is recruited, some uplines gave the "money back" guarantee in their haste to recruit members.
Many uplines are having sleepless nights now because of this guarantee.
A Datuk who turned down a friend's invitation to join the scheme years ago told the daily that many people in the southern states fell for it but kept quiet "to save face".
"Some uplines who can't refund their recruits have gone into hiding," he said.