Investors in Taipei yesterday accused Chinese-Malaysian businessman Ronald Aai, operator of the cryptocurrency wallet Cloud Token, of defrauding 1,000 Taiwanese out of NT$900 million (US$30.32 million) in an alleged financial scam.
At a media briefing yesterday, Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Ann Kao (高虹安) called for a judicial investigation into Cloud Token, saying that law enforcement authorities should arrest Aai if he is in Taiwan and detain any Taiwanese accomplices.
Kao, a former vice president at Hon Hai Technology Group’s Industrial Big Data Office, said that Aai came to Taiwan last year to conduct promotional seminars and recruit people to invest in Cloud Token, which he said was a “4.0 blockchain” wallet that could integrate all of the popular cryptocurrency assets.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Things like ‘blockchain’ and ‘Cloud Token’ sound like new ideas, but people looking to invest in them must really get to know how they work. It is not true that the purpose of AI [artificial intelligence] technology is to grow their investments,” Kao said.
One investor, who gave her name as Emily, said Aai promised that Cloud Token transactions were completely traceable, that 4.0 blockchain allowed people to deposit or withdraw funds at any time, and that cryptocurrency trading was very profitable.
Emily attended one of Aai’s seminars in July last year and, putting money into the scheme, received a Cloud Token SIM card, purportedly linked to her MasterCard account, for transactions.
She said that she initially earned a return of about 33 percent on her investment and that, by trading cryptocurrencies on Cloud Token, she earned vouchers for international travel packages, hotel accommodations and goods at department stores, which persuaded her to increase her investment up to NT$1 million, and to encourage friends and family to sign up.
“However, starting in October last year, Cloud Token was no longer handing out bonuses, or vacation and hotel vouchers, and its employees in Taiwan were telling us to be patient, that there were delays because of the protests in Hong Kong and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Emily said.
“Then, early this year, Cloud Token suddenly stopped running any transactions and we could not access it — we realized it was a scam,” she added.
According to information from Bitcoin.com, Cloud Token was a multilevel marketing scheme, or Ponzi scheme, that touted its blockchain technology and online wallet for cryptocurrency trading to allegedly defraud investors.
Chinese authorities have over the past few months arrested 72 people in connection with the Cloud Token operation, whose operators are likely related to Plustoken, a similar Ponzi scheme, the Web site reported.
“Just like Plustoken, CTO [Cloud Token] promised 6-12 percent interest every month, as the project was initially founded by the project’s lead developer Ronald Aai and project manager Daniel Csokas from Singapore, and nearly every article describing the Cloud Token project shows that the scam was tightly connected to the Plustoken creators, then in June a report highlighted that the Cloud Token project had issues in Singapore so the MLM crypto scheme’s founders decided to relocate,” it added.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to