Chinoys scammed again
Philippine Daily Inquirer
1:00 am | Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
It’s sounding almost like some kind of financial scam has to hit the affluent Binondo Chinese community every now and then.
The latest edition of this recurring story unraveled only last week, according to our sources, when a Filipino-Chinese “forex trader” absconded with the investments of several family members and friends.
“Forex trading?” Well, strictly speaking, the actual trading of dollars in Binondo has slowed down in recent years after the relative stability of the peso against the US dollar virtually eliminated the exchange rate differential between the formal market and the so-called “gray market.”
Apparently, what is called “forex trading” nowadays is somewhat of a misnomer as it involves trading of highly leveraged (and highly volatile) foreign exchange futures contracts.
These contracts—which are basically sophisticated derivatives contracts—can deliver large gains to the clients, but can also result in devastating losses once the markets move against the investor (something that can happen in seconds).
There is no formal futures exchange in the Philippines so investments of this nature are traded by locals online in virtual exchanges offshore.
It is this kind of activity that this Chinoy “trader”—whose initials are NT—was allegedly engaged in. After suffering massive losses, NT (who is said to be related to the owner of a popular Chinese restaurant in Greenhills) supposedly “disappeared” and is now in hiding.
The damage to his irate and despondent “investors” has been estimated to be close to P1 billion. Ouch.—Daxim L. Lucas