That there’s a certain amount of greed out here among us humans is obvious enough. But we do normally have to be lured a little bit in order to give up our wealth rather than just handing it over to the fraudsters. One useful technique is to operate as a Ponzi scheme, like Menzgold. But there are simpler ways as Global Coin Community Help has just shown. Tell everyone you’re in crypto and people will fall over themselves to give you their money.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has hauled the directors and shareholders of an illegal cryptocurrency firm – Global Coin Community Help – before an Accra High Court. The company is said to be an institution operating under a false name, even though it has not been licensed to operate by the Bank of Ghana or the Securities and Exchanges Commission. According to the anti-graft body, the suspects have defrauded over 3,000 unsuspected ‘investors’ who have pumped millions of Ghana Cedis into the company’s activities. They have succeeded in collecting a whopping GH¢47,239,000 from their depositors and have dissipated the amount within the one year of their operation. [/perfectpullquote]That’s pretty much the whole story too. There’s nothing very much to add. They didn’t, as with Menzgold, dress this up in excessive returns to early and lucky investors, didn’t have a tale to tell. As Menzgold did:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The other thing to note is that they’re offering “up to 10%” returns per month. And they’re in the gold business. The two points are not compatible. It is simply not possible to be making a regular 10% per month return in the gold market. No, not even if you look to moves in the foreign exchange rate of Ghana and the USD and all that. Nor is there any clever operation with options, futures, differential time values or anything else which will make that sort of return. The global gold market is simply too large, with too many people in it, for that sort of arbitrage to be possible – the market’s too liquid for that. Thus someone offering 10% per month return on gold is offering a scam. [/perfectpullquote]There wasn’t even any of that. The allegation at least is that Global Coin Community Help asked people to send them their money – to be put into crypto – and then they went and spent it. It’s not exactly a complex crime, is it?
The language we use matters - it provides clarity to our own thoughts and enables…
It is now generally acknowledged that the structure of the NHS needs to be overhauled…
In the film Apollo 13, a loss of oxygen causes the crew to start inadvertently…
There's an idea out there which seems intuitive but then so many ideas do seem…
When we think about the darkly opaque goals of modern central bankers as they relate…
As the papers recently filled with the distressing images of desperate souls looking to escape…
View Comments
Perhaps the Ghanaians need to learn from the Americans:
1) Start a tech company and hype it to hell (the new way to order taxi's for example).
2) Sell 10% to your mates for $1bn* which then values it at $10bn.
3) Have an IPO to get the mugs to "invest".
4) Make out like bandits.
5) Watch the idiots lose their money.
Nothing like a ponzi - no sir.
* Not actual cash you understand.