Long read:
Man, 59, Dies by Suicide After Falling Victim to Ponzi Scheme
10 min read
Mech Dara
Thu Dec 24, 2020 8:01 am

Ngeth Samay, next to a portrait of her deceased husband Keo Puth, took out a loan of several thousand dollars from a private lender in order to invest in a Ponzi scheme. The couple put up their farmland as collateral. “I absolutely believe that our land will be gone,” says Samay. “I don’t know where we will find the money to pay back our debt; I am an old woman, alone.” (VOD)

In the weeks after Keo Puth realized he had lost all the money he invested in a Ponzi scheme that ensnared thousands of families in Kampong Speu province, the 59-year-old became increasingly desperate.

He started traveling to the Por Chamroeun commune hall in Baset district every day to try and recover his money, but with no luck, his family recalls. Puth even joined a mob that camped outside the hall to protest, trapping several of the alleged scammers inside until police took them into custody earlier this month.

Puth had only earned 35,000 riel a day, or about $8.75, as a construction worker, yet he and his wife took out $3,000 in loans from a private lender in early November in order to participate in the investment scheme, says Puth’s wife, Ngeth Samay, 59. Though they received a quick payout early on, the rest of the expected interest payments never came. By the time they realized it was a scam, they had already put down the title to their farmland in order to secure the private loan, and the first payment to the lender — $120 — was due on Saturday.

“[Puth] told me that he would not go on living if he did not get his money back to pay off his debts,” says Puth’s cousin, Chong Keng, 65. “[He] did not know what to do to pay them.”

Puth began taking his motorbike out in search of work, and when that failed he used what little money he still had on hand, a few hundred riels, to drink.

At dawn on Friday, the day before the payment was due, Puth’s son was preparing to leave for work when he noticed the door to a room in his father’s home locked from the inside. He broke through and found that his father had killed himself.

“I was so shocked I could not cry,” says Sou Khom, 25. “I went and grabbed his leg and called my cousin and sister. … I was shouting and my mother did not believe me. We never expected he would do something like this.”

Puth was among 65 families in the village of Dei Kraham in Nitean commune who came forward to file a complaint about the financial scam in recent weeks, says Dieth Srun, the village chief.

Almost everyone in the village was caught up in the scam, residents say. Even the chief sold two cows, worth $1,250 total, to invest. But not everyone chose to take legal action.

At least one villager told VOD they did not want to file a complaint because some of their relatives got caught up in the scheme as middlemen, collecting money to pass onto the ringleaders.

Local authorities estimate that thousands of villagers in the 14 communes of Baset district lost a total of $20 million to $100 million to the scam. Investors were told they would receive 4 to 18 percent interest every 10 to 15 days, though in classic Ponzi scheme fashion the interest simply came from the funds of subsequent investors, an unsustainable model.

Last week, provincial governor Vei Samnang said authorities were working to ensure some form of compensation for victims of the scam, though at best victims would receive back only half of what they invested.

He said this week that some villagers had withdrawn their complaints because “they believe that the money is in the hands of the collectors” — the middlemen who received the money on behalf of the ringleaders.

Samnang says that if villagers had only listened to and cooperated with commune authorities — who previously said they first learned of the Ponzi scheme in June — they could have avoided being scammed. At the time, authorities told one of the alleged scammers to stop the business, but his children continued it for several months.

While three of the alleged scammers have been arrested, five are still at large, he said this week.
https://vodenglish.news/man-59-dies-by- ... zi-scheme/

Suicide about 3000 $...so sad. The runners of this sceme should face life imprisonment for beeing responsible.