In what appears to be a big scam, a number of people who were promised lucrative returns for investing in so-called money-spinning real estate and stock deals, have been cheated to the tune of QR100m. According to Al Sharq, word spread that a company was inviting investments from those interested promising huge returns in just a year’s time. Soon there was a beeline of investors in front of the company’s office. Returns offered in a year depended on the sum invested but it was on average three times the capital put at stake. And the investors were told there was no risk involved since the sum invested was ‘guaranteed’ as the company was issuing post-dated cheques to give back the capital with profits in installments. There were people who invested as much as QR20m and are waiting to get their money back. One individual who staked QR180,000 was promised he would be retuned QR600,000 over a year told Al Sharq the manager of the company actually congratulated him for investing his hard-earned savings with the right people. But the man soon realised the cheques issued to him bounced as there was no money in the account of the company which issued them. “We went back to the company and the manager asked us to be patient,” he said. In March, as the heat for the manager became too much to bear he fled the country. Al Sharq contacted him to seek his version and he said the company lost the money of the investors due to the global recession and that he would repay each and every penny invested but would not give away any profits. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=July2009&file=Local_News2009070913514.xml

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