Vietnamese investors bury their money at “gambling arenas” “Underground” foreign exchanges have been mushrooming, operating under the cover of “investment consultancy firms.” The foreign exchanges have been “living well” on the investors’ greed.    Analysts have noted that the illegal foreign exchanges have established after the gold trading floors were forced to shut down by the State Bank. There always exists a high demand in the public for the investment channel, which allows to “make big money quickly.” Therefore, the foreign exchanges have become the new destinations for investors. In principle, investors can earn money very quickly on the exchanges because the exchange rate always fluctuates. Meanwhile, the foreign exchanges offer very attractive finance leverage – 1:500, which allows even the investors with modest capital to “make money” as well. Therefore, they have been attracting a large number of investors. On the online forums set up by investors, one can read very attractive invitations to join the foreign exchanges. The investors have been told that they just have to have $100 in capital of their own to join the “games.” They would be able to borrow money to have $500,000 to make investments. Especially, the promised profits are very attractive, at five percent per month at minimum, or 60 percent per annum. Some “investment consultancy firms” even promise to give money back to investors in case the investors take loss with the investment deals. An officer of the Khai Thai Investment Consultancy Company in Hanoi affirmed that investors will never take loss because the firm has experienced consultants who have deep knowledge about foreign currency trade, Meanwhile, the broker of another consultancy firm committed to help investors make the profit of 100-200 percent per annum, if the investors make transactions via the firm and use the firm’s VIP consultancy service package. In order to reassure choosy investors, most of the firms offer the investment entrusted service packages. The Kumpo Technology Investment and Development Company, for example, reassures the investors that they would make the profit of 5 percent a month, while they would get money back in case they take loss. It is estimated that the 70-80 existing foreign exchanges of this kind have attracted hundreds of billions of capital from investors. Only brokers can pocket big money While consultancy firms promise to help investors make big money, 99.9 percent of the investors complained on investment forums that they took loss. Some investors, who introduced themselves as “experienced investors,” noted that foreign exchange is “the investment channel from which it’s most difficult to make money today.” They said only the brokers can earn money from collecting fees, while the majority of investors “die like flies.” Lawyer Truong Thanh Duc, Chair of Basico Law Firm, has warned that the investors joining the foreign exchanges have got involved in illegal investment activities which are not protected by the laws. A senior official of the State Bank of Vietnam also said the foreign currency trade through the illegal foreign exchanges has been mushrooming. The State Bank has been joining forces with relevant agencies to investigate the activities. However, he admitted that it’s not easy to deal with the illegal investment activities. In order to “dodge the laws,” the contracts signed by the foreign exchanges with the investors only stipulate general provisions. Meanwhile, the transactions have been carried out in a secret way based on the software installed on the personal computers and phones which connect directly with the legal exchanges with the servers situated overseas. Phuoc Ha, VietNamNet Bridge