PETALING JAYA: He was an accountant who managed his finances wisely, rarely splurging unnecessarily.
So due to his cautious nature, he was sceptical when a friend told him in 2022 about an investment scheme that not only paid out unusual returns but allowed flexible withdrawal of funds,
The accountant, identified only as Lim, was not convinced even after he carried out some research and found out about its consistently good payouts.
But Lim, 58, caved in after a chat with a relative who swore she had been receiving monthly returns of between 5% and 7% each month over the past seven years.
“What started with a RM6,000 investment, gradually rose to over RM1mil from funds that I had saved up for my old age,” he said in an interview.
Lim eventually saw his investment growing by between RM50,000 and RM70,000 each month.
“I withdrew some of the returns and bought a second-hand luxury car,” he said.
Eager for bigger profits, he pumped in another RM1mil which was the last of his savings.
But three months later, the scheme operators pulled the plug. They converted the funds to a cryptocurrency token they created, claiming it was to evade taxation by the authorities.
The value of the investments rapidly plunged by over 95% within days and the accounts of “investors” became inaccessible.
Lim’s world crumbled.
“My life’s savings were wiped out,” he said.
He was among the countless people who ended up with worthless digital tokens of one of the longest running scams known as TriumphFx, which is on Bank Negara’s Financial Consumer Alert list.
The police have received 80 reports of losses amounting to about RM24,813,086.
The scheme, which is said to be masterminded by a Malaysian with the help of foreign accomplices, was recently busted by the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) with the arrest of several suspects.
Financial forensics expert Raymon Ram said Lim’s nightmare was a case of “rug pull”, which is akin to yanking the rug from under an investor’s feet, catching him by surprise.
He said rug pull schemes, especially those involving cryptocurrency, are on the rise.
“Scammers typically launch a new token or a non-fungible token ( T) and promote it heavily, promising huge returns for early investors.
While investors buy the token and drive up the price, the scammers, who often hold a large share of the token supply for themselves under multiple proxy accounts, quietly prepare their exit.
When the cryptocurrency price rises high enough, these scammers dispose their tokens and abruptly vanish, leaving investors with worthless tokens.
“This is called a ‘pump and dump’ style rug pull,” Ram said when contacted, adding that there is also a rise in such schemes being masterminded by Malaysians.
He cited the case of the Gigamax scam busted by the CCID last year which styled itself as a crypto investment platform before its operators rug-pulled and left its victims RM7mil poorer.
Ram said the human nature of “fear of missing out” (FOMO) has fuelled such scams.
“Scammers exploit the hype. Many people jumped at the chance to get in early on the hype about ‘the next big coin’.”
Social media and chat forums further amplify the frenzy, he added.
These scammers, he said, would use cryptocurrency and e-wallets for transactions instead of conventional bank transfers due to the lack of oversight in the crypto space.
“Moreover, it is very easy to create a digital token.
“This is why rug pull-style schemes are flourishing worldwide,” he said.
In January, CCID director Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf said that scammers had made Malaysians poorer by at least a quarter billion ringgit within 33 days into 2025.
