A purportedly fake online marketing company that claims to have Google and Yahoo among its business partners has allegedly cheated thousands of Taiwanese investors out of a total of NT$2.5 billion (US$76.3 million) since last year, authorities said yesterday.
OurPPC, which calls itself a pay-per-click management company, offered individuals the chance to invest in Internet search keywords, saying they could earn up to a 23 percent return within 50 days, the Ministry of Justice said.
In a bid to increase the number of investors, the group also organized a tour to Macau in July for anyone who had put US$10,000 into the scheme, and as many as 2,400 people signed up, the ministry’s Bureau of Investigation said.
“According to our information on hand, we cannot assert the company actually exists,” a Department of Economic Crime official said, adding that the amount of money obtained through the suspected fraudulent scheme could be even higher.
“The amount is our preliminary finding,” he said. “It appears the money has been moved overseas.”
One man, surnamed Lin (林), was being held in custody, while another seven who were detained on Monday had been released on bail.
On its Web site, OurPPC says its core business is to help clients drive traffic to their Web sites by identifying keywords used in Internet searches.
It lists its headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and its chief executive as Peter Anderson, a graduate of the Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland.
The company had turnover of US$15 million in 2013, it claimed.
Investors who have a membership account with the company can invest in keywords to earn a return as high as 38 percent, the Web site says.
“OurPPC is the first of its kind in the pay-per-click advertising field,” it says. “Basically, the risks are close to zero.”
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