Bank Negara places 14 more companies on alert list

PETALING JAYA: Fourteen more companies have been put under Bank Negara’s financial alert list.

These companies, alleged to be operating money games and unauthorised cryptocurrency platforms, include CYL Asia Enterprise, CYL Peoria Enterprise, CYL Prospect Trading, CYL4U Resources, JJ Commerce Trading, JJ Online Enterprise, L&L Property Ventures SB and Mama Captain International.

The rest are Nahana Global Resources, New Gen Food Sdn Bhd, NGR Asia Group Sdn Bhd, NGR Global Sdn Bhd, Relax Green Enterprise and Richway Green Venture.

JJ Commerce Trading and JJ Online Enterprise are believed to be linked to the JJPTR investment scheme that collapsed in April, with the company claiming it lost US$400mil (RM1.7bil) to a purported hacking job.

Its founder Johnson Lee and two of his aides were arrested by police on May 16 and released on police bail on May 23.

The company has shut down its official website, www.jjptr.com, and closed its offices in Penang.

CYL Asia Enterprise, CYL Peoria Enterprise, CYL Prospect Trading and CYL4U Resources which ran the Change Your Life forex scheme, offered a 30% monthly return on investments.

The CYL money-game scheme slumped after JJPTR and its premises were also raided by the authorities last month.

Mama Captain is allegedly a cryptocurrency-cum-pyramid scheme. The investment is similar to the share market where a “split” method is used.

Out of the investment amount, 50% would go into a cash wallet, 20% into a share wallet for buyback of the company’s shares, 20% into the company’s own Barrel2U reward points and 10% for administration fees.

Mama Captain had a list of 17,812 merchants under Barrel2U and it was quite a popular “payment method” in Penang, although it was also available in many shops outside Penang.

Their investors would also get “Haha points” which could be spent on its online shop MamaHarbour, based on the amount they put in and from investors they recruited.

Bank Negara, which updated the list yesterday afternoon, increased the list to 334 companies that were neither authorised nor approved under the relevant laws and regulations administered by the central bank.

On June 22, 14 companies which were allegedly operating money games and pyramid schemes found themselves in Bank Negara’s financial consumer alert list.

Among “popular” financial schemes red-flagged by the central bank this year were JJ Global Network, JJ Poor To Rich, JJPTR, MBI International Sdn Bhd and Mface International Sdn Bhd.