PIPC workers tap experts to hunt down S’porean boss

Employees of forex trading firm Performance Investments Products Corp. (PIPC), led by its general manager Cristina Gonzalez-Tuason, have tapped the services of two high-caliber Hong Kong-based lawyers and an international forensics agency to hunt down their president, Michael Liew, who is suspected to have fleeced investors of hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars.

Tuason earlier sought the help of the National Bureau of Investigation to locate the Singaporean owner who had escaped together with an estimated $200 million to $250 million of investors’ funds.

A PIPC official said Tuason has hired Ferrier Hodgson Ltd., a company specializing in financial investigations and anti-fraud services.

The PIPC source, however, did not name the Hong Kong-based lawyers so as not to compromise their efforts to get back the investors’ funds.

“Tina is going out of her way to pin down Liew and make him accountable for the money infused by investors,” the source said.

The same source said other PIPC investors are also considering joining forces with Tuason to track down Liew’s whereabouts and recover their money.  Some investors are also looking at filing a case against Liew.

Tuason and other PIPC employees had also been lured by Liew to invest in Performance Investments BVI, leaving them with substantial financial losses.

The same source said while the company provides information on offshore foreign corporations, PIPC is not involved in the investment placements of any persons with the offshore foreign corporations, particularly Performance Investments BVI.

“Neither does PIPC sell, market, advertise and/or promote any security as defined under the Securities Regulation Code,” the source said.

The same source said PIPC employees were ordered by Liew to stop providing information about the offshore foreign corporations and were given the runaround by Liew concerning their queries on the status of their own investments in Performance Investments BVI.

PIPC officials said the bank accounts of Performance Investments BVI in Singapore, including the one at ABN Amro, had been emptied of their deposits.

Investors are asked to put in at least $40,000 in a trading scheme that bets on gains or losses of paired currencies on a guaranteed rate of return of 12 percent per annum.