She rented private properties and dressed to the nines to give the impression that she was a big-time player in the oil trading and shipping industries.writes the first paragraph of the article “$1.4m scam: Thrice-convicted cheat gets 12 years” in the May 9th issue of The straits Times. Yet another investment scam. Yet more people losing their life savings. Yet I am blogging about it. Despite homo-sapiens being the dominant species on planet Earth due to our supposedly superior brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving, we can be of little difference to other ‘inferior’ species when it comes to seeing through a false front. Many scammers and cheats would dress themselves up or decorate their offices in a lavish way to make their victims believe that they are making good money. Sunshine Empire, the MLM company in a alleged investment scam, had a lavishly decorated office in HDB hub and members who drive big continental cars. Pasupathi Bavani Ammal, the woman sentenced in the investment scam above, rented private apartments and dressed well. Read more...
[caption id="attachment_2442" align="alignright" width="128" caption="Photo by Jim Sneddon"][/caption]