Speak Asian Online: SpeakAsia scammers attempt reboot
If I could pinpoint the moment Indian regulators failed SpeakAsia’s victims, it would a Judge unfreezing the scheme’s bank accounts for a few weeks mid-2011.
CID investigators immediately filed an appeal and had the accounts refrozen, but by then the damage had been done.
Harendar Kaur, one of the masterminds behind the Ponzi scheme, rushed to transfer over $100 million dollars out of the frozen account.
The funds, along with Kaur, were never seen again.
What followed was a proxy war against Indian regulators headed up by Ashok Bahirwani.
Bahirwani was hired by SpeakAsia management to set up the All India SpeakAsia Panelist Assocation, whose purpose was to encourage victims not to cooperate with authorities.
There is no doubt in my mind that funds transferred out of India were used to fund this effort.
At the forefront of the nonsense was a court case filed by Solomon James, a Speak Asia investor working closely with Bahirwani.
Writ 383 was filed with the objective of obstructing regulatory investigations into Speak Asia. To this end the lawsuit was largely successful, until it was finally disposed by the Supreme Court of India in late 2012.
Once again, by the time that legal circus had played out, the damage to Speak Asia’s victims, many of which to this day refuse to acknowledge they were scammed, had already been done.
Most of Speak Asia’s ringleaders had disappeared by that point, with CEO Manoj Kumar remaining a fugitive on the run.
Kumar fled India shortly after Indian regulators began to crack down on the scheme in 2011.
Reports suggest Kumar purportedly died of cancer in 2014. To date and as far as I know, this information has never been verified.
I maintain that one of the key masterminds of Speak Asia expiring after years on the run, with millions of dollars yet unaccounted for, is a little to convenient for my liking.
In any event despite seemingly insurmountable odds, Indian authorities continued to investigate SpeakAsia.
Several arrests were made throughout 2013, culminating with a 5000 page chargesheet filed in December.
A further six arrests were made in February of this year, with prosecutions announced to be “coming soon” last month.
It is against this backdrop of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Indian history, that scammers are now attempting to resurrect Speak Asia.
Whereas reboot scams tend to distance themselves from predecessors, those behind the new scheme has taken the opposite route.
Referring to the scheme as “Speak Asian Online”, all they’ve done is add an “n” to the original Speak Asia name.
Details surrounding the scheme are currently sketchy, but it’s clear that Speak Asian Online is likely being run by those heavily invested in the original Speak Asia scam.
A website has been set up over at “speakasianonline.com”, which borrows heavily from the original Speak Asia website.
The domain itself was registered on the 4th of January 2015, with bogus details evident in the registration.
Much of content and media presented on the site is dated circa 2011, before regulatory action halted Speak Asia’s online activity.
An ad that features on the Speak Asian Online website was uploaded to YouTube on May 30th, 2011.
Speak Asian Online’s business model is a carbon-copy clone of Speak Asia’s compensation plan. That being affiliates invest funds on the promise of an advertised weekly ROI for 52 weeks.
This is done using a survey ruse, through which it’s claimed Speak Asian Online investors perform market research for non-existent clients.
To that end a number of third-party logos appear on the Speak Asian Online website, with the company claiming they are “proposed advertisers”:
Note that none of these companies were ever clients of Speak Asia Online or Speak Asian Online, nor will they ever be.
The surveys Speak Asia conducted have already been busted as doctored frauds.
CEO Manoj Kumar paid some shill to peruse Wikipedia articles and come up with pointless surveys for Speak Asia investors to complete:
Speak Asia’s surveys for its investor-panelists were sourced mostly from Wikipedia and other sites on the Internet, and not from clients based abroad.
The EOW, on Friday, arrested a web designing firm’s owner who allegedly prepared surveys for Speak Asia from information he gathered through the Internet. Speak Asia’s claim that its surveys were sourced to clients abroad.
That the same is happening in Speak Asian Online is pretty much a given.
On the same page the above logos appear, an image of a trademark registry filing bears the name “Nisha Singh” as Speak Asian Online’s proprietor.
A Nisha Singh can be observed making enquiries about joining Speak Asia back in February 2011,
but whether or not this is the same Nisha Singh behind Speak Asian Online is unclear.
As is to be expected, promotion of Speak Asian Online targets Indian investors who lost money the first time around.
Writes one Speak Asian Online affiliate:
Are you a Previous Member of Speak Asia. Do You Really Want to Get your Money Back.. Please call (removed).
And another:
SPEAK ASIAN ONLINE SECOND VERSION OF SPEAK ASIA ONLINE.
SPEAK ASIAN ONLINE AGAIN START SURVEY CONCEPT WITH GOVERNMENT APPROVAL. NOW…
Alexa statistics show an uptick of traffic beginning late March, indicating the scheme has only just started to take off:
Will victims of the original Speak Asia be once again taken for another hundred million dollar ride?
With no information on the Speak Asian Online website pertaining to management and a bogus domain registration, who is behind the scam remains to be seen.
Stay tuned…
no way.
anyone can see it’s a pisspoor copy attempt, by some ponzi hopeful.
this will be gone in three months if it’s lucky.
Here’s some insider information that some will need to know. Dr. Dato Emmanuel Erwin Raj, is one of the masterminds behind SpeakAsia, he then branched off and created Qbule.
I can go deeper about this mans SCAM that he has done against Cambodia, Philippines, Malaysia and other countries.
He asks for people to put the company in their names while money is sent to a bank account in Singapore called DBS. I’ll include the bank information that he has people send there, with their expectations that they are sending money to another company.
Even more so the “DR” is not a real doctor his fake doctorates is from a false university. His Dato title is also fake, he purchased it for 60,000 USD in Malaysia. Just some inside information.
Hello everyone!
Recenlty some ex members of speakasia contacted me and told me to join in newly formed speakasianonline (free registration) and they are telling that my previous fund will be given back by filling the form ‘raise ur fund’..
I want suggestion from experts regarding this, are they seriously going to repay our loss amount.
Dear All
I sent a mail in their inbox but I have not received any reply almost even after a month.
The informations they are asking for to return the previous speakasiaonline money wherein one is asked to mention the upnliner name and capital money invested together with old ID etc. etc.
For me – I can give them my IDs but I have no records of my (and my friends) upliners and to some extent Emails are available with me.
I wrote to them everything, but no results. At present I can not open their site and I when I log, a site Go Daddy comes. Absurd!
They might have with them the old server from where they can get almost every informations, if one give his/her ID.
Is they really giving the old ID’s money? Why should there be time limit to return the money? Where are their Court Papers – only ISO Certification?
Where is office address including name of Police Station? I am surely going to file report to concerned police station if not I get back my previous money and they start their new business.
Again, through this mail I wish to inform ‘SPEAKASIANONLINE.COM’
The website is offline already?
That didn’t take long to collapse.
Hi now again speak asia site name changed from speakasian to speakindia.
You can get a late answer from me.
The new scheme obviously don’t have money to pay you. “Raise funds” means that you will get some numbers on the screen in the back office in exchange for your contact details.
If you bring in more investors then you can earn something, if you can trick those new ones to pay you money directly (while you use “back office funds” to pay for subscription code, main panels and subpanels for the newly recruited panelist). Method #3:
It’s a fraud.
THEY will get your contact details and potentially bank details. YOU will get worthless numbers on a screen, plus the right to bring in more investors.
Now running at “speakindiaonline.com”.
Looks like they just changed the name of the scheme, everything else is the same.
Will probably collapse about as fast as SpeakAsianOnline did.
edit: They’ve also got a clone site up at SpeakIndianOnline.com.
@Dipen Choudhury
Hi I too tried mail and I didn’t received any reply.
They told all to fill the old detail after filling we will get our old money after 40 days. I too tried but for me 40 days completed still I didn’t received my old balance.
Now they are saying to topup old id then only we will get old money . But I didn’t topup I already lost money with speak asia again I don’t want lost money.
Now my question is what about exit payment. Any got yours old money please help us to get our money.
It seems this speakasian guy wants to ride on speakasia fame and collect, misuse data of innocent so called panelist.
“speakindiaonline.com” was one of the many social sites running at the time of glory days of speak asia and got closed afterword once the speakasia story got over.
This scamster seems to be taking advantage of it, transferred unrenewed domain to himself and misusing it. But this stupid man is knowingly getting himself into trouble, getting urself associated in anyway with speak asia will only land you into CBI/EOW net.
Hi , i am not agree with steve B .. Dato dr Emmanuel Erwin Raj has nothing to do with speak asia and qbule india.. they just Drag his name in this..
I know him very well .. he is one of the most respected person in malaysia because of his charity works .. and contributions toward old folks home and orphanage home..
Thats was miss Kaur from Singapore who scams..
Dato Dr Emmanuel Erwin Raj has nothing to do with this all..
Dato Dr Emmanuel Erwin Raj got Dato title because of his social works and yes he did PHD.. You guys must get that fact before Post Rubbish about Respected person.. Thanks.
@Faraz
You posted the same under three different names and attempted to agree with yourself. You even “god blessed” the good doctor.
Is that you Emmanuel?
No i am Faraz here ..People like steve B write shit about some one .. Because i know Dato Dr Emmanuel Erwin Raj personally ..you cant buy dato ship with RM60,000 … unless You are social worker and helps other .. This title Dato give by Sultan of Pahang.. so do u think king will take money and give u title .. its completely bullshit ..
Dato Dr Emmanuel Erwin Raj has nothing to do with Speak Asia .. they just Drag his name .. u Must meet Dato Dr Emmanuel Erwin Raj , they u will know who he is ..
God bless
I have to say the Datos history with MLM has not been good. uFun Club’s four Dato owners come to mind.
Dato or no Dato, it didn’t stop running up millions of dollars in Ponzi fraud. Then they ran off to Malaysia and were never heard from again.
I Balaji Subramaniam from Bangalore read all that that was written and published by steve B, I particularly find that his comments, accusations is baseless, nonsense and an insult to Dato’Dr.Emmanuel Erwin Raj.
I personally know Dato’Dr.Emmanuel Erwin raj for the past 17 years. And i know him to have been a good ethical business man with credibility, Dato’Dr.is also the mentor to many a Indians from India and around Asia and the person responsible for having introduced the networking concept of business in the early 1990’s to India.
Dato’Dr.Emmanuel Erwin Raj has also conducted many successful motivational courses and seminars throughout India and has the credit of creating many successful entrepreneurs till date in and around the world.
Out of curiosity, what MLM businesses has this guy been involved in then?