Chinese and Malaysian police have seized over 3.8 billion ringgit (US$900 million) of assets – including yachts and property – from a syndicate alleged to have duped millions of people throughout the Asia-Pacific with promises of high-return investments. The Ponzi scheme, which operated mainly in Penang state, is believed to be linked to the MBI Group, started by Malaysian Tedy Teow Wooi Huat, who was extradited to China last year after hiding in Thailand. Seventeen people were arrested last month under Ops Northern Star. One of them was a major property developer who allegedly helped launder money for MBI through a web of businesses. “We conducted the investigation with some intelligence assistance from China,” the police’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department Acting Director Muhammed Hasbullah Ali told This Week in Asia on Wednesday. Founded in 2009, MBI presented itself as a luxury property firm before introducing a pyramid scheme centred around a digital currency dubbed “M-Coin”. From Malaysia, the scam expanded to China, Japan and New Zealand. Oh Ei Sun, Senior Fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said that the scope of the scam was “so huge” that it forced a collaboration between Malaysia and China. “Hopefully this will set a precedent for closer bilateral collaboration in tackling cross-border crimes,” he said. No criminal charges had yet been brought as the matter was still being investigated, a police source said.

Full report : MBI Group’s Malaysian founder has been called ‘Jho Lo 2’ because of the sheer scale of his operation.