A fool and his money

Browsing through some old newspapers the other day, I came across an astounding story in the Straits Times.

Headlined "Con man cheated 91 people of $13 million", it was a local story, not one from a place that doesn't quite make it even into Google maps, which might explain the simple-mindedness of the victims.

Indeed, of of those caught in this scam were successful professionals in their own right, while the culprit, Lee Hock Chye, was a mere 30-year-old, blind in one eye and 'not very articulate'.

And instead of finding this cause for suspicion that the promised high returns could be achieved, one of the victims actually gave it as a reason for trusting him.


This victim who lost $518,000 said:"He looked to be in a bit of a pitiful state and all these things made him seem relatively harmless. It gave the impression he was trying to make a decent living."


Lee's victims - including retirees, businessmen and students - gave him amounts ranging from $430 to $744,000, after he promised them returns as high as 30 per cent.


Lee had set up a company, LePrime, to give the illusion that he was trading in the index futures market and could offer various investment schemes with high returns. He claimed that LePrime conducted trading in Dow Jones, Hang Seng Index and Nikkei 225 Index.

His victims are said to have fallen for the lure of making a quick buck.

In my view, that may be true for those who had small sums of money and not much sophistication.

But those who are senior managers, professionals and businessmen?

It seems to me that more than greed, they all don't have brains or common sense!
Lee for 14 years on 16 counts of cheating, with another149 similar charges were taken into consideration.

Considering that he managed over two years to swindle his 91 victims of $13.4 million, of which only $3 million was recovered, he could be said to have "earned" roughly $5 million per year.

Another way to look at it is, the 14 years' jail -- or about 10 years after one-third remission for good behaviour -- he will serve one year for every $1 million that he swindled.

Very few hard-working Singaporeans receive $1 million for every year they invest in work.

That's why con-games are so popular and why fools continue to feed the market.