Sanaa, from Belqis Al-Haddad to Hatorum.. 14 billion riyals in commercial fraud operations

English - Monday 07 June 2021 الساعة 08:44 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:

A few days ago, specifically at the beginning of last week, Yemeni media and social networking sites were buzzing with the name of the twenty-year-old Abdul Rahman Hatrom, and talk about his ability to escape outside Yemen after professional fraud, through which he collected about $ 5 million.

The media circulated a document issued by the criminal investigation in Aden, asking the air and sea ports to arrest the aforementioned next to a young man and another girl, because they are wanted in fraud cases, although the facts began in Sanaa, which is under the control of the Houthi militia, but that the man was accused of the victims may not have been.  It is confined there and reached the liberated areas.

According to what was published about the case, the so-called Hatroum presented himself to his victims as a businessman and owns a company for trading, importing and general contracting, and was able to market himself on a large scale as a merchant who buys land, real estate and cars.

Hatrum took advantage of the rush of many, including merchants and businessmen, to invest their money in him, and took large sums on the promise of returning them to them with interests of up to 100%, before suddenly disappearing inside Sanaa about 4 months ago, amid information that he managed to get out of Yemen.

This case was revealed at a time when the case of the controversial businesswoman "Bilqis Al-Haddad", the owner of the "Sultana Palace" company, which is located in the Houthi prisons in Sana'a, and accused of defrauding thousands of citizens, has been open for months and has been highlighted from time to time.  .

And last Sunday, the Houthi leader Ali Al-Emad, who was appointed by the group as head of the Central Organization for Control and Accountability, provided exciting details about the case, saying that “Bilqis Al-Haddad” alone collected 90 billion riyals, pointing out that the case is “deep, large and broad, and very many individuals are involved.”  .

However, the recurrence of such incidents and their concentration in areas controlled by the Houthi militia raised doubts about the existence of a relationship between them and the leaders of the group that facilitates their work, to loot citizens' money to finance its war against Yemenis.

Apart from that, what is certain is that such operations are based on what has become universally known as the “Ponzi scheme” in relation to the most famous financial fraud in American history, and called “Ponzi” is an Italian immigrant born in 1882 AD, although he was not  He invented it, but the name stuck with it.

A "Ponzi scheme" is called every scam or fraud, especially investment operations in which returns are paid to old investors through the investments of new investors, which is called a pyramid scheme.

That is, the idea is for the fraudster to lure the first investors by offering very attractive interests that may reach 100%, in the first year or month, which is in fact their money that they paid, and the goal is, of course, to push them to start telling their friends, neighbors and everyone they know about the quick profit  which they have achieved, to ensure the entry of investors.

Here the wheel begins to spin, as the fraudster distributes the alleged “profits” to investors from the money of the new investors they bring and so on, with the choice of course between withdrawing their money or letting it work in the scheme to achieve greater profits, and investors often prefer this last option.

This scheme is one of the oldest and easiest fraud methods in the last 100 years, and it can only be detected when the fraudster escapes and is convinced of the money he has collected, or in the event that all investors ask for their money at one time, the fraudster is unable to do so and the matter is exposed.

This is what happened with the famous American fraudster Bernie Madoff, who was described by the American press as the mastermind of the "biggest fraud" in American history, and he died in mid-April in a prison in America where he has been since 2009.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 after he admitted defrauding investors through a program known as Ponzi, in which he pays investors with money from new clients, rather than actual profits.

The case at the time caused a global uproar, as the size of the fraud carried out by Madoff amounted to an estimated 65 billion dollars, and it continued for about 50 years, during which Madoff defrauded famous institutions and banks in America and Europe, and even managed to defraud investment funds belonging to major countries.

However, his fraudulent career collapsed during the financial crisis in America in 2008, which prompted most of the depositors of their money with Madoff to request their withdrawal, which led to his exposure, arrest and trial in 2009.