ILIGAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 2, 2013) – A government soldier was killed after gunmen attacked a detachment outside the mansion of businessman accused as behind a multi-million trading scam in Marawi City in the southern Philippines, officials said Saturday.
Officials said troops are searching for three of the attackers were wounded in the ensuing firefight that erupted outside the house of Jacob Razuman, who is accused of duping hundreds of millions of pesos from Muslim traders in Mindanao.
The motive of the attack is still unclear, but Brig. Gen. Daniel Lucero, the local army brigade commander, said troops and policemen were manning the detachment set up by authorities to prevent angry investors from burning the house of Razuman.
“We are tracking down the attackers and three of them were wounded in the gun battle,” he said.
Razuman has surrendered last year to the National Bureau of Investigation after he failed to pay back his investors, who were victims to his Ponzi scheme, similar to the P12-billion scam carried out by Malaysian national Manuel Amalilio who also duped many people in Pagadian City last year.
Razuman also invested to Amalilio’s Aman Futures in the hope of getting more money, but the Malaysian swindler fled to Sabah after his company collapsed in October, and was arrested last month by the police in Kota Kinabalu where some of his Filipino victims tracked him down.
Investors said they put so much money into the trade after Amalilio promised to pay them as much as 50% profit in just two weeks.
The investment trading began in February last year in Pagadian City and news of its high-yield, high-profit spread like wildfire and attracted even street hawkers and tricycle drivers who poured their hard-earned savings into an overseas stock and money trading.
During the first weeks of its operation, investors were paid at least 31% and profits increased to 50% in the succeeding weeks – luring not only ordinary citizens, but politicians as well.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique in 1920. His operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States.
It was also the same scheme that American stock broker and investment advisor Bernard Lawrence Madoff – who was arrested in December 2008 – used to lure thousands of clients to invest in his scam. As much as $80 million dollars were believed lost to Madoff’s scam. (Mindanao Examiner. With a report from E. Dumaboc)
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