Investors caught in alleged $1.2b scam

Hong Kong is another city where Chinese investors have staged a protest. [Photo/China Daily]

Representatives of API and Alpen could not be contacted, except for the former API director listed in the Swiss public register, Aleksander Kaja, who declined to comment. Offices formerly used by API in Geneva were vacated months ago, while a Hong Kong office was also abandoned, with a writ for unpaid rent left stuck to the doors.

"Both companies used their Swiss image to attract new clients, although they were mainly managed from abroad," Vinzenz Mathys, a spokesman for Bern-based Finma, said. "This, along with the losses endured by depositors, has a negative impact on the Swiss financial market's good reputation."

Chinese investors thought the company's claim that it was regulated in Switzerland made it secure. "Switzerland is famous for its financial-services industry," Han Mingyun, 65, a widow in Wuhan, said. "They are supposed to be the best and safe."

Han was lured by the promise of a Swiss investment and saw $45,000 in savings disappear.

Asked last week about the alleged scam and API's use of Switzerland to draw investors from China, Finma's Chief Executive Officer Mark Branson said: "Where there is a financial center, people will always try to take advantage."

In Beijing, scores of investors have held four protests, the latest last week outside the Embassy of Switzerland, urging the Swiss government to work with China on the investigation.

On May 20, they protested outside the government petition office in Dongcheng district, urging that Chinese police set up a unit to investigate. The Beijing Public Security Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security did not respond to faxed requests for comment. Two telephone calls to the petition office went unanswered.

"We want the police to strengthen their investigation," Han, the widow, who took part in the latest Beijing protest, said. "People around the country are still suffering from the scam."

The investors are aware of complaints from Shanghai, Zhejiang, Chengdu, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Hubei and Shenzhen, and they believe their ranks number 29,000 people who lost the equivalent of $1.2 billion.

They were directed to deposit money in bank accounts in Hong Kong or Chinese mainland, where API representatives told them they would send the cash to Switzerland, they said.

Some of the individual investments totaled more than 1 million yuan ($161,000), according to a report by China Central Television.