Nothing royal or golden about Royal Gold but just a “cleverly orchestrated scam”, according to victims.
- Over 100 police reports made since 2015, apparently no action taken by police
- Believed to have 1,000 investors nationwide, with Klang Valley investors alone losing more than RM340m
- Gold investment, oil bunkering and land schemes
- Promo materials used ‘royal emblem’, photos of a ‘Datuk’ and member of royalty
A group of about 80 victims of a gold investment scheme filed a police report against the scheme called Royal Gold today, claiming they have not received any returns as promised.
DAP’s Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng, who accompanied the victims to the police station in Petaling Jaya, said there were 1,000 investors nationwide who had invested in Royal Gold.
“Over 100 police reports have been made against Royal Gold since 2015, but nothing has been done by the authorities,” Lim said
Lim Lip Eng (right) with an investor.
“We want this case to be investigated using the Penal Code, the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Council (MACC),” he said.
Lim claims more than RM340 million has been lost by investors in the Klang Valley alone.
Thomas Zakariah, who had invested more than RM50,000 in the scheme, said he had stopped receiving any returns on his investments made since 2014.
“They offered me a chance in the gold conversion programme after they had stopped giving us returns, asking me if I wanted to change to other investment programmes under Royal Gold,” he said.
Apparently, the company offered gold investment, oil bunkering, and land schemes. When it stopped paying returns, investors reportedly discovered that many alleged claims by the company were not true.
“It looks like it wasn’t a failure of a business entity, it was a cleverly orchestrated scam,” Thomas said.
Another investor, Patmanathan Menon, said he started to invest in the scheme in June 2014.
“I was promised 15% every month on my gold investment, including the capital. I have since invested over RM200,000,” he said.
Patmanathan said he had been convinced to invest after seeing that the company used a “royal emblem” and also showed the photo of a ‘Datuk’ and a member of the royalty on booklets and leaflets.
“I thought the investment opportunity was genuine and within the law, as they had the ‘royal emblem’,” he said.
The company apparently issued a letter to investors in February, saying it was facing financial problems and needed six to nine months – from March to November – to settle all the outstanding payments.
Since Sept 27, 2012, Royal Gold Sdn Bhd has been on Bank Negara’s Financial Consumer Alert list, which consists of companies and websites that are neither authorised nor approved under the relevant laws and regulations administered.
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