How Tedy Teow, the Malaysian fraudster dubbed ‘Jho Low 2’, allegedly swindled millions

Ang, now 35, from Kuala Lumpur, handed over the sum – which he did not want to specify to This Week in Asia – to an investment agent representing MBI in 2016. It was only their second meeting.

At the time, he had no way to know he had just joined thousands of other Malaysians ploughing money into pyramid schemes, spanning property to cryptocurrency, that would lose them millions of ringgit.

The risks, Ang says, were carefully whitewashed by sales agents during an impressive investor conference organised by MBI, the company authorities in Malaysia and China say was behind billions of dollars of fraud.

“I listened to the testimony from one of their top speakers at the conference, sharing how he made his money and went from owning a regular car to driving a Ferrari, going from a zero to hero,” Ang said. “I was just amazed at how they managed to invest to make a living.”

Teow, who is believed to have also gone by the name Zhang Yufa, is accused by Chinese authorities of leading a fraud syndicate that had stolen over 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) from more than 10 million investors in an operation that began in 2012.

Malaysian authorities have said that MBI Group International was used as a front for numerous scams and pyramid schemes, including what police called the Macau Scam, through which Teow and his two sons are believed to have laundered 336 million ringgit (US$70.9 million).

Teow and his associates crafted MBI’s image as a legitimate conglomerate with interests in property, including high-end residential and retail spaces across Malaysia and Danok in neighbouring Thailand.

“They were very professional. They had many teams of agents who managed investor accounts. The agency leaders rented a block of offices, owned