EDITORIAL - Con game

After several months on the run, Manuel Amalilio has finally been apprehended and is set to be deported to Manila. Malaysian authorities nabbed the head of Aman Futures Group Phil. Inc. in Kota Kinabalu reportedly after Amalilio presented a fake Malaysian passport.

Now authorities must ensure that Amalilio’s prosecution on charges of perpetrating a pyra-miding scam does not take an eternity, even if he is supposed to have swindled about 15,000 investors. In the months when Amalilio was in hiding, employees and offices of his investment company in the Visayas and Mindanao were attacked, with victims of his Ponzi scheme believed to be the culprits. Only speedy justice will prevent more violent attacks as Amalilio’s trial gets underway.

There have been other pyramid scams in the country in the past years, but the swindling scheme persists. Authorities have noted the difficulty of stopping people from being lured by the prospect of a large return on investment within a short period, despite numerous warnings about financial schemes whose promised returns are way higher than what any bank can offer.

The best way to discourage the scheme is to ensure the punishment of the perpetrators, including the people who allow themselves to be used in the initial stages of the scam, when early investors do make a large profit. In Amalilio’s case, at least one local government official has been tagged by investors as an endorser of the scheme. Investigators must go after these individuals as aggressively as they have gone after Amalilio and his company’s executives.

This is a confidence scheme, and much depends on the credibility of the initial endorsers. Those who allow themselves to be used as bait for a criminal undertaking must be made to face the consequences.