Corporate Frauds in India

Speak Asia Scam

Muhammad Musab Ahmed

SPEAK ASIA SCAM

Organizations today want to reduce the business risk by investing wisely in a market
research to know what the customer desire, because “Star Product” is not always a result of
spending millions on advertising, designing and marketing.

In 2008 Global Market Research revenue reached over 32 billion USD and in emerging
markets it was growing at the rate of 6%. Surveys are the most commonly used method of
market research today. Organization are paying big bucks to the people just to know what
they think as it helps them to improve their product and services and in turn they pay good
money for our opinion.

Speak Asia used the same tactic to spread its wings in the market. It was an online market
research company located at Singapore and founded in 2006. Company carried a valid
ACRA certification from compliance authority of Singapore. It was introduced into India by
Paul brothers with the help of Sharma in 2010 with a promotion campaign. The company
had assured profitable earnings through a multi marketing pyramid model. Subscription of
web was sold for Rs.11,000 each by the company for which people had to fill survey forms,
later these survey forms were found to be fake, for definite MNCs for guaranteed annual
payment of Rs.52,000.

Actual Offer: Invest $100 as registration fee and earn $40 per month for a whole year, also
if you want to earn more just refer your friends to join the platform and get commission on
their earnings as well.

Now the offer seems real opportunity for a person who is interested in making money
online just by sitting at home. All you need is an internet connection, a computer and basic
knowledge of English language, but any well-versed person will not consider this offer as
legitimate opportunity and straightaway dump such schemes as “Fraud”. Unfortunately
hundreds and thousands of people all across India including salaried professionals, jobless
youth and even housewives devoted their hard earned money to “Speak Asia”.

A meeting was arranged in Goa to make the investors feel trusted. A portion of beach resort
and free train were booked. Rani Mukherji, Neha Dhupia, Abhijeet Sawant and Mika Singh
performed at this meet in Goa. Company also spent 2.5 crore in a Bollywood movie, all this
was done in order to gain the trust of investors.

In 2011 “Speak Asia” closed its business in India after compensating a few investors. The
company fooled over 24 lakh investors and the amount of fraud reached up to Rs.2,276
crore.

Page 1
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT SPEAK ASIA

Speak Asia was nothing more than a domain name registered by someone for a Pvt. Ltd
Company in Singapore. On 21st January 2010 this domain name was registered for a period
of 3 years. Speak Asia was more popular in developing countries like India, Bangladesh and
Nepal where majority of the population was poor or semi educated youth who are always
willing to find the easy ways to earn some money without putting much efforts.

HOW IT WORKED

1. Any individual or group can choose from two types of subscription plans including
standard or premium panelist. $120 has to be paid by the standard panelist against
training, support and fortnightly E-Bulletin (26 issues) whereas premium panelist has
to pay the amount of $220 for the same where no of issue increases from 26 to 52.
Maximum of 3 panel centers can be maintained by the individual and 9 sub panel
centers can be added further by each panel center.

2. With an additional investment of $200 on panel center a sub panel center can be
purchased it is similar to topping up the mobile by adding value.

3. By supporting the panelist and associating with Speak Asia as panel support center
individuals and groups can earn additional bonuses. Minimum of $20000 must be
maintained by a panel support center as a buffer stock at any point of time.

4. For training, guidance and monitoring of panelist, panelist trainer is the only individual
authorized by the company. A special training is provided by the company to the
individuals who desire to become trainer. Additional incentives are also paid to the
trainers.

THE COMPENSATION PLAN

The adaptability of the Speak Asia Pay Plan offered the chance to boost your earnings from
referral group. Because of this the arrangement is one of a kind and progressive and
earnings are paid instantly. The arrangement likewise uses pay and gives a work in work in
legacy provision for the beneficiaries. After opening an online Speak Asia account, a web
based following focus is built up under your name to monitor your rewards. There are two
kinds of remuneration, direct and indirect.

Page 2
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

SYESTEM

Reward Points: Speak Asia understands that one’s opinion is valuable. Therefore
whenever you take some time to respond to the surveys of their clients and give your
honest opinion you will get a reward for that.

Join As Panelist: Speak Asia compensates in four ways. When you subscribe to Speak Asia
and complete the registration process you become eligible for two weekly surveys and
when you log in your Speak Asia account these surveys are shown on your home screen. By
filling the standard and premium surveys you can earn $7 and $20 every week respectively.

Help Your Friend: Whenever your referred friend earns from weekly surveys you will get
$1 from those who are standard panelist and $3 from those who are premium panelist.
These earnings can be greater than the income from your own panel.

Add Sub Panels: 10 sub panels can be added at a concessional price of $100 for standard
and $200 for premium sub panels. You will get two surveys every week from each sub
panel, so you can earn $70 as standard and $200 as premium panelist every week.

Refer A Friend: You can earn $10 for referring a standard panelist and $20 for premium
panelist. When you and your referred panelist invite other panelists you become eligible
for Team Bonus 01 and when your group and your referred panelist purchase additional
sub panels you earn another income that is Team Bonus 02

You can earn $5520 per day through team rewards.

TEAM BONUS 01

All panelists who are part of your team will either become your left group or right group.
Here every standard panelist will give you 100 reward points while every premium
panelist will give you 200 reward points. When these reward points will become equal to
200 on both side i.e. left and right you will earn $20. This will automatically be calculated
by computer accounting system.

Page 3
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

TEAM BONUS 02

When you and your team add sub panel centers on a panel center you are rewarded with
team builder bonus.

INCOME PLAN

1. Mostly on every Wednesday surveys were populated.

2. All accrued incomes generated from surveys will be added in your survey E-Wallet after
30 days.
3. All referral and networking earnings will be transferred daily in your panel E-Wallet by
12 Noon IST.
4. You can transfer your panel E-Wallet incomes to survey E-Wallet but not vice versa.
5. Internal transfers are possible with in three family IDs.

PAY METHODS

Speak Asia offered three modes of payment for its subscribers.

1. Payment through E-Wallet

2. Payment in US$ cheque
3. Cash transfer in your bank account.

 Amount from E-Wallet can be encashed through a subscription code. You can also earn
a bonus of $2.5 by using $100.
 Request for cheque can also be sent, minimum limit for this is $50 and $2.5 will also be
deducted per transaction towards courier.
 Cash transfer request can also be sent; here minimum limit is $80 and $7.5 for bank
charges.

Page 4
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

 You can send both these request through your user account. Just click on the sub menu,
select “Account Section” and click on “Send a Cash Request”

PAYMENT EXPLANATION (EXAMPLE)

Let’s suppose you requested for cash transfer of $80

Now,

$80 - $7.5 (Bank Charges) = $72.5 (Your Receivable)

$72.5 X 50 (Fixed Exchange Rate) = 3625

3625 divided by 46 (Current Exchange Rate) = $78.8

Hence,

You will receive cash amount of $79 in your bank account.

SPEAK ASIA, A SCAM OR OPPORTUNITY

You cannot consider Speak Asia as real appropriate opportunity. It was only a chance for
those who were interested in making money without considering the purpose and source.
It seems a good opportunity for people who can convince other people to join the platform
so that they can earn more money.

Here are some of the facts that should have considered.

1. Speak Asia was just a web based business which was registered in 2010 in India. Now
it’s quite simple, these domain names can be registered by anyone and once the domain
is registered a website is designed to start the working, so it’s a very simple process
that anyone can do.
2. In Singapore Speak Asia was registered as a private entity so it was quite obvious that it
was beyond the influence of Indian laws. In India people didn’t knew about the
elementary requirements of getting a company listed in Singapore, its responsibilities
and the conditions on which it can work. If you are ready to invest few thousands you
can register your own company in India.
3. You must invest $100 (11000 INR) per year to get the membership of Speak Asia which
allows you to make money by participating in the weekly surveys.

Page 5
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

4. For filling the survey form Speak Asia was offering 10 points (1 point equal to 1$) which
was quite big for countries like India, Nepal and Bangladesh, because even in USA and
UK companies was not offering that much to the people for filling the surveys.
5. Majority of the good companies that are conducting surveys usually checks background
of participants before allowing them fill the surveys. Those who qualify the criteria are
allowed to take the surveys.

By focusing on the above mentioned points we can clearly say that Speak Asia was nothing
more than a Ponzi scheme which was later confessed by the Speak Asia advisor Mr.
Dandona who was arrested in September 2016 by EOW. Mr. Dandona was also the owner
of Kritan Management and Allied Services and was linked with Speak Asia. He was also
alleged for advising Tulsient Tech Pvt. Ltd and HVP and also for the transfer of funds to
Singapore collected by Speak Asia.

FEW LOGICS THAT PROVE SPEAK ASIA WAS A WELL PLANNED SCAM

1. Speak Asia was registered in Singapore instead of India because they knew that people
won’t do case in Singapore court for Rs.11,000/-
2. Speak Asia was selling subscription of online newsletter Ezine and you can’t take them
to court if surveys stop coming because still you will be getting Ezines.
3. Ezines were just only the copy paste from some others sources like Wikipedia and etc.
4. They were charging annual fee for subscription.
5. The criterion was only set to be over 18 no such requirements such as proficiency in
English and internet was mentioned.
6. Speak Asia members count was reached to 7.5 lac panelist right in the very beginning
and the plan was to make it 1 crore at the end of year. One thing to be noted here is that
when companies do survey they try to pick up a sample and not the whole population.
7. Once the panelist reach the mark of 1 crore they will earn a revenue of Rs.52000 crore
[1 crore (members) X 52 (Weeks) X 1000 Per Week], now the question is that who is
going to pay this amount.
8. Allowing members extra panels for some fees will surely impact the quality of survey.
9. Utter Pardesh where majority of the people don’t know English had most no of
members on the site i.e. 3 Lac. In this context Amar Ujala Newspaper quoted that people
who are not really able to fill the surveys due to lack of understanding about English
language and who doesn’t know how to use internet give Rs.50 to others to do the
same.
10. The registered address of the company was showing details of 4 different companies
and the company name was also changed 3-4 times in few years.

Page 6
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

After the five years of Speak Asia scam Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of India arrested one
of the directors of Speak Asia. Speak Asia CEO Mr. Manoj Sharma’s wife Renu Sharma was
also presented under the watchful eye of the session court.

A claim was made by the EOW that Sharma was a signatory authority and also a director of
the company. Mr. Pradeep Gharat (Special Public Prosecutor) claimed that Rs.710 crore
was transferred to Singapore by Sharma. Mr. Gharat also argued that EOW had been
searching for Mrs. Sharma but she was not detectable at any of the accessible locations as
she was one of the main accused in the case. Mr. Sharma instructed the court that Mrs.
Sharma had been professed a proclaimed wrongdoer and the way toward appending her
property had likewise begun.

EOW also instructed the court that Speak Asia was founded in year 2010 as a marketing
survey company in India. They urged the people to fill some surveys forms of multinational
firms by investing Rs.11,000/- and promised to provide return of Rs.52,000/-

In the beginning investors were paid by the company but the business was closed very
shortly after deceiving the investors. 24 lac investors were allegedly deceived by the firm
and amount of scam reached Rs.2,276 crore. Police claimed that Rs.900/- crore were
remitted to Singapore by Speak Asia. They also claimed that money was sent to Singapore
from India and from Singapore it was transferred to Dubai, Italy and UK; However money
came back again from UAE and UK to India.

Another culprit of the Speak Asia case Arun Rai, resident of Nagpur was also arrested when
he was attempting to leave the country for Bankok. Arun Rai owned one of Speak Asia’s
franchises and he transferred the amount of Rs.70 crore to Speak Asia’s account from his
account. Police told the court that look out circular (LOC) was issued against him and he
was detained from Kolkata airport when he was leaving for Bankok.

A police officer told the court that they had issued a red corner notice against Manoj
Sharma because he deliberately designed, planned and plotted the scam and when the case
was registered against him he fled the country. His wife Renu Sharma claimed that her
husband died in Singapore due to cancer in 2014.

Almost 32 people have been arrested till now in this Multilevel Marketing Firm case and
the people are hoping that they will get back their money; some of the accused of Speak

Page 7
Corporate Frauds in India
Speak Asia Scam
Muhammad Musab Ahmed

Asia scam have also guaranteed them to return the money through a Speak Asia website.
215 accounts have been frozen that have a balance of more than 141 crore.

CONCLUSION:

It’s quite easy to earn some extra money by sitting at home and spending some time on
computer, filling the surveys but one should always confirm the authenticity of platform
where they are going to invest. Investing 1000s of bucks for earning some extra amount
without doing any research will always put your investment in danger. Your long term
goals and dreams have no shortcuts and Speak Asia was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.

This Speak Asia case teaches us one of the most important lesson of our life that “If
something is too good to be true – just avoid it” and it also reconfirms one thing that.

“NOTHING IN THE WORLD IS MORE SEDUCTIVE THAN THE DOSE OF MONEY”

Page 8