PUTRAJAYA: The hope of 765 claimants to secure RM8.3 mln which was part of a RM100 mln Ponzi scheme was dashed yesterday with the decision by the Court of Appeal to allow the prosecution’s appeal to forfeit the money.
Following the decision, the money would go to the Treasury coffers, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Anselm Charles Fernandez who represented Bank Negara, while Susheel Kaur represented the Securities Commission (SC). A three-man bench headed by Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim, in a unanimous decision, said the respondents (claimants) had failed to discharge the burden under
the requirement of Section 61(4) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001.
Justice Abdul Aziz ordered the decision of the Sessions Court and the High Court, which had allowed the claimants’ application, to be set aside.
The two other bench members were Datuk Mah Weng Kwai and Datuk David Wong Dak Wah.
In an immediate response, counsel Md Yunus Shariff, who represented some 200 claimants, said his clients were disappointed with the decision since they had hoped to recoup at least 20 to 30 per cent of their investments.
He said most of them had taken a bank loan of between RM50,000 and RM100,000 to invest in the scheme and most were also from the middle-income group.
“Most of them (investors) were lured by businesswoman Raja Noor Asma Raja Harun, director of FX Capital Consultant (M) Sdn Bhd, where she collected nearly RM100 million from nearly 4,000 investors by promising high returns from the company’s investments in palm oil trading between 2007 and 2008,” Md Yunus told reporters after the ruling.
On Jan 11, 2011, Raja Noor Asma was sentenced to seven years’ jail and fined RM5 million by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court after she admitted to 50 counts of money laundering and four SC charges. — Bernama