May 08, 2007 12:04 AM
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(Updated May 08, 2007 08:25 PM)
Finally some good news for those cheated by pyramid scam called Goldquest/ Qatana/ Questnet operated by Qi group of companies based at HongKong. Their Malaysian big boss has been arrested in Indonesia for propagating this scam and defrauding people.
Indonesian police have arrested top operatives of the GoldQuest scheme, while its founder is also wanted by Interpol for his activities in the Philippines, reports said. Quest International(QI) group Chief Executive Vijayeswaran Vijayaratnam, director Joseph Bismark, and two other senior executives, Donna Marie Imson and Tagumpay Kintanar were arrested Thursday The Jakarta Post reported. Police arrested the four people, believed to be the operators of GoldQuest, a network marketing scheme that sells gold coins, following a red notice from Interpol. Jakarta police chief Adang Firman told reporters Friday the suspects, Malaysian and Philippine citizens, were also accused of mis-using the image of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, better known as Gus Dur. Wahid’s lawyer, Ikhsan Abdullah, has said the Goldquest had used pictures of both Gus Dur and late Nahdlatul Ulama founder Hasyim Asy’ari in its promotional material without Gus Dur’s consent to sell gold coins.
’’We have arrested four of them, all expatriates, after Interpol contacted us, ’’ Jakarta Police Chief Adang Firman told the Jakarta Post newspaper. Sri Lanka’s Central Bank developed an anti-pyramiding law after the Goldquest scheme swept through the country and collapsed several years ago. Several QI activists were arrested by Sri Lankan police, but the Central Bank last year dissolved its special investigation unit amidst much controversy. QI has also invested in Sri Lanka even in the banking sector, though investee banks such as the National Development Bank have been resisting registration of their shares. Senior employees of Commercial Bank of Ceylon also raised objections to a proposed merger between their bank and NDB on the basis that QI group held shares in that bank, reports in Colombo said last month. Indonesian police told reporters that the four Goldquest top-rungers were also being sought by police in their home countries adding that 48 Indonesians had filed reports about the company. The four had been arrested at the Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan, South Jakarta, at a conference.
Interpol in its ’Red’ fugitive list(link) said Vijayeswaran was wanted for fraud and conspiracy on a warrant issued in Quezon City in the Philippines. Meanwhile the New Straits Times(NST) newspaper said Goldquest’s Malaysia manager Tony Teoh Boon Sir, had been charged with operating a direct selling(network marketing) company without a valid license in 2000. NST said Vijayeswaran Vijayaratnam, who used the Malaysian honorary title of ’Datuk’ is wanted in connection with a 90 million US dollar fraud case in the Philippines. Indonesian police are co-ordinating with their Filipino counterparts to extradite him to Quezon City where a warrant of arrest has been issued against him for a nine-year-old case, the newspaper said. NST said Vijayeswaran’s lawyers were fighting moves to extradite him, and a Quest International(QI) group official issued a statement saying the Philippines case was awaiting a determination in the Court of Appeal. NST said the official also claimed that the ’issues relating to the matters reported, including in respect of Indonesia and one of QI’s businesses, had been overstated and inaccurate.’
Previously Goldquest officials have been arrested in countries such as Nepal where its scheme had been banned, and company statements had soon followed, protesting their innocence. In Sri Lanka Goldquest has issued statements repeatedly denying they were running a pyramid scheme.
