Hi guys, serious question here- I would like to seek advice from the people in this subreddit regarding money cheating case.

For context: 3 years ago my parents invested their life savings with a cousin of mine who used to be a private investment banker under the promises of a guaranteed capital with high interest returns ( I had no idea about this investment until last year)

Initially there were some small returns being made to them and they did not suspect a thing as they thought it was a legit investment being made and there were still communication between them in Whatsapp.

However towards the final stage which was in late 2022 where its time to return their capital with a huge interest, my cousin gave excuses such as a delay in the processing of the oversea bank and giving false payout dates before finally ghosting my parents and not replying to messages and calls which led to my parents making a police report on this.

The police investigation is ongoing ,and they told us they cant force my cousin to pay up and told us to go to this Legal Aid Bureau as we don’t have the money for a lawsuit. But from what i spoke to the person on their hotline, they don’t handle criminal cases.

Therefore, are there any options left or are victims suppose to live with their own mistakes while the offender gets away with it?

From what we know, she’s no longer with the bank, but as to whether she left of her own accord or was fired we are not sure

Here are what netizens think:

Are there any documents signed for the investments? if it bears the bank details and logo etc, report it to the bank. The bank has more lawyers than u can ever hire. let them prosecute then u settle with bank. if they deposited the money directly into her account then… its as good as gone.

I would expect the investigation needs to be completed before anything can happen. Assume this cousin is a gambler and the money is gone though 🙁

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think even if you sue, if the other party doesn’t have money to pay, he can just declare bankrupt and you still won’t be able to get your money back. Money flows around like water, if it is directed to another stream and then goes somewhere else where it’s dried up, you can’t get a droplet back…..