March 26, 2007 - In recent years, a number of lawless individuals and organizations have been setting up investment funds via the Internet and tempting the public to invest overseas by promising huge returns. Such activities, a kind of pyramid selling, are deceptive and harmful.

Such illegal overseas financing activities can be generally described as using the Internet as its stage, overseas funds as its camouflage, illegal pyramid selling as its method, huge returns as its bait, and racketeering money as its object.The following methods are frequently used. 1) Collecting money in the name of a private equity fund and promising investors that the company will manage the money and they will receive bonuses if they entrust their money to the company. 2) In the name of buying products or enlarging membership, investors will reap profits via enrolling new members. 3) Selling to investors the stocks of companies that plan to go public overseas by promising that the investors will earn huge profits by selling the stocks after the company is listed. However, once there are insufficient subsequent funds, the capital chain will immediately split, resulting in irreversible losses to the investors.

To satisfy individual demands for overseas investment, the SAFE recently introduced a succession of policies. The Measures for the Administration of Individual Foreign Exchange issued at the end of 2006 specify that individuals in China can directly purchase B-shares, or entrust domestic commercial banks to invest in overseas financial products, or directly invest abroad after obtaining approval of the administrative authorities for overseas investment. It is suggested that investors remain alert to overseas investment, especially to such scams as investment funds, and that they conduct financial transactions through legal channels to guarantee the safety of their property.