Amber Butler-Davis
Staff Reporter - ReportingAsia.com

Exam Answers leaked before examination

The Shaghai Daily reported on the 28th of October that answers to some exams have been leaked and are available for purchase. The Beijing Education Examination Authority confirmed that the exam papers for national tests in civil law, corporate law, legal instruments, civil procedure and environmental law have al been leaked somehow. The Ministry of Education has now begun an investigation to find out how the exam papers have been leaked. However, the authority of the Beijing education examination told the Shanghai Daily that it is hard to tell if a second examination should be set until the investigation is completely finished.
A lawyer with a surname Liu, who teaches Law in a non-governmental university and his student Wang Ming reported the leak. Liu explained to authorities how he bought the answers to seven examinations for the sum of 150 yuan (US$21.90) from a man called Zheng Xin after being introduced to him by his students. The two men then went to the authorities with the evidence along with mobile phone messages and recordings. Liu checked the exam papers and found that the answers to the five tests he had bought from Zheng were in fact correct. Liu commented that Zheng had been particualry cautious throughout the whole process but finally agreed to sell the answers to friends of the acquaintances. Also, it was told that they never did the deals in public and that they money was always passed through and paid to a middleman in the operation.
Wang told the Shanghai Daily that the leaked answers had started to appear about a week ago and that the price to buy all seven examinations was only about 100 yuan. Wang said that some of his classmates got the answers from their teachers or classmates.
Liu and Wang had found answers to several exams in April being leaked and they reported this to the Beijing authorities in May but because they had no hard evidence, no investigation was put into place.
The Beijing examination authorities told the Shanghai Daily that they had checked all the examination areas as well was the printing and transport facilities across the country and no problem was found in any of these places. The Newspaper quoted an authority official saying “There are cameras everywhere during the exams and since it’s a national exam held across the country, we can do very little if the source of the leak is outside Beijing,”

Hong Kong Bureau

10 on trial for Pyramid Scheme

Apparently, money does grow on trees. The Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday that ten people accused of running a pyramid scheme have gone to trial at the Baotou intermediate people’s court in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The trails began Monday for the defendants, and they are beng charged with conning over 30,000 people out of 1.28 billion yaun ($187million) by selling them overpriced sections of forestry land.

Defendant, Chen Xianggui told the court that he set up the Liaoning 1,000 Miles Forestation Co in August 2002. And that over the next five years he had managed to establish more that 100 different branches in 12 separate provinces across the country. Lui Yanging, also a co-defendant was employed as the company’s general manager.

The company was in full swing having nearly 9,000 salespersons employed to sell unmeasured expanses of land at 26, 600 yaun a piece to unsuspecting investors. The buyers were told that the value of their land was expected to rise to the value of 180,000 yaun within the next eight years. The company also promised the buyers that they would pay back 44 percent of the initial investment every year. However, when the payments promised failed to be given to the buyers, the investors became suspicious and several buyers reported the company to the authorities.

During investigations, the police were able to uncover more that 40 similar schemes that were all being run by the same company and immediately stepped in to shut down and suspend the company’s operation.

The Inner Mongolia autonomous regional government launched a two-month investigation in July to discover the legitimacy of the company’s claims. The investigation found that even though the woodland did exist it could never have yielded the dividends that was offered by the Liaoning firm because of the woodlands such poor location.

Lui, Chen and another eight associates that remain unnamed were subsequently charged with violations of national law.

A spokesman for the investigators told Xinhua on Tuesday that the Inner Mongolian government will “do its best” to minimize the investors’ losses. Once a verdict in the case has been reached, then full details of how and what repayments might be made to those who lost money form the scheme will be announced. However, the defense lawyer, who wishes to remain unnamed, is not expecting a verdict anytime soon even though the trial is now underway.

Reporting Asia Uncovers Merchants of Misery.

Hidden in the back of newspapers, magazines and blogs in Hong Kong, China, Japan and Australia to name but a few, you will find links with the following key words and phrases:-

“It’s guaranteed!”

“It’s not possible to lose!”

“Make 5% every month!”

This is the bait used to by the Merchants of Misery to lure millions of dollars away from people who can least afford it. The scam is very well constructed and to the uninitiated very credible. It goes by various names the most common of which is Sports Arbitrage Trading. Arbitrage is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms in order to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset.

Sports Arbitrage Betting (or trading as the marketeers prefer to describe it) can be applied to almost any sport but thoroughbred horse racing is arguably the most predominant because of the large number of events and the vast diversity of bookmakers plying their trade internationally.

Of course in Asia where in most places, notably Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, having a punt on the horses is almost endemic and the enticement of making easy money is irresistible; having the chance of making money with absolutely no risk is too much of a temptation even for the non-gambler.

One would think that sensible people would realise that if it sounds too good to be true then it usually is but once our “greed button” is pushed common sense is quickly replaced by finding all the wrong reasons to say yes and join the lemmings.

Strictly speaking the ability for Sports Arbitrage Trading to actually make a risk free profit is a reality but the margins are normally so low that a trader would have to engage in so many daily trades that there would be no time for a regular paid occupation. Having said that, the confidence tricksters generally weave their story around championship tennis matches such as Wimbledon as it is pretty easy to understand how it works.

There story goes something like this…

“During The 2007 European Tennis Open Final match in Hamburg, Germany between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, one trading exchange had Federer at $1.70 and another had Nadal at $2.85. If you were willing to spend $2,000 you would put $1,250 on Federer to win at $1.70 and $750 on Nadal to win at $2.85. No matter who wins the match YOU win the money! Here’s how. If Federer won you would receive $2,125 or a profit of $125 and if Nadal wins you would receive $2,137.50 or a profit of $137.50. Either way you win!”

Now who could refuse that! The con men tell you that opportunities such as these come up every day of the week, year round. Then they go on to tell you about compounding. No enough that you have just returned 6.25% on your money in just one trade now they want you to compound it. Of course compounding is a marvelous device for preventing the gambling public to want their money back short term. And then the coup de grace is given - “Your initial investment of say $8,000 will turn into $12,800 in just 12 months - now how can you beat that!” Of course nobody can.

Here comes the real con. Now if they were simply teaching the public how to handle the convolutions of sports arbitrage betting such as having accounts with more than 20 international bookmakers and to facilitate the transfer of funds between those account one must have an acceptable international account such as Neteller and one must take into account the commissions charged on winnings by betting exchanges - not to mention the currency trade commissions and fluctuations - and the list of complications goes on - that would be fine and they would be justified in charging a fee. However it does not work that way. Our benefactors, having explained the difficulties of you having to trade provide a service in that they will do it for you - in return for a management fee. Unable to resist we can’t wait to send our money and get the scheme underway as every minute we delay will be costing us a fortune.

Because of the various rules of engagement and the fact that the unwitting punters are compounding their profits at say 5% per week no less, a weekly report is published which a Grade 7 student could produce on Microsoft Excel showing the ever increasing asset - regardless of whether the “sophisticated investment” company trades or not!

Payday approaches and the anxious customers start emailing or telephoning the company for some news as to when their fortune will be sent to their bank account. Things slowly start to go wrong. Emails are answered obliquely; phone calls are not returned and before long the “pay day” passed by. Then the excuses start: “because of money laundering laws our funds have temporarily been suspended by Neteller, we are on top of it and your money will be transferred soon”; “we are currently experiencing accounting difficulties but will be able to make your payments within the next 30 days”; and so on and so forth.

Top executives suddenly leave the company AND the country, offices are vacated and mobile phones are not answered. Minimal email communication is made to forestall any legal action while the villains run off with the money to safe havens hoping that the people they screwed have neither the will nor the wherewithal to track them down and bring them to justice.

In our next segment we name names and details of the hawkers and their co-conspirators and in which of the Asian or Australian cities they dwell. If you have fallen foul of these peddlers of greed please log into our blog and let us know. They will have no hiding place.