A file photo of a 2011 demonstration held by Bestino investors at Bank Negara Malaysia. Pic: komunitikini.comIPOH: Traffic crawled to a halt at at Little India here as some 100 Bestino investors held a demonstration for about an hour on Wednesday.

Holding placards and banners, they demanded that Bestino Golden House Sdn Bhd managing director Chong Yuk Ming provide them with proof that the company had sufficient funds to return their money in a gold investment scheme.

Bestino investors' action committee spokesman K. Kunasekaran said Chong claimed that the gold investment firm had US$146mil (RM440mil) in an overseas account in the Virgin Islands, enough to pay back more than 6,700 investors who are believed to have invested some RM411mil in the company's scheme.

“Chong had promised to furnish the documents to back up his claim by Sept 30, but had failed to do so.

"He was also supposed to give information on the status and whereabouts of gold bars belonging to Bestino investors, as well as the company's assets," he said.

Kunasekaran added that they had little faith in the company after it failed to fulfil an earlier pledge to return money to investors by April 30.

They were told that the money, which was in the company's HSBC Bank account at that time, could not be withdrawn due to technical issues.

On Oct 30 and 31, the same group of protestors camped outside the Prime Minister's Office here to seek his help in retrieving their investments after the central bank froze the accounts of Bestino in 2009 pending a trial.

They dispersed after a special officer of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak agreed to set up a meeting between the investors and Bank Negara, Finance Ministry, attorney-general's chambers, Bestino directors and the investors' lawyer.

The date of the meeting has yet to be fixed.

Bank Negara had raided Bestino's office on suspicion that it was carrying out illegal deposit collection.

The central bank confiscated RM24.2mil, which is being held as evidence pending court proceedings.

Last year, Bestino managing director Chong Yuk Ming and three company directors were charged in the Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur Sessions Courts with over 300 counts of money laundering and receiving deposits without a valid licence.

The charges were framed under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 and the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2001.

 

 

- By Fong Kee Soon / The Star

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/11/7/nation/20121107154840&sec=nation

 

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