2012-09-10
Bank of Lithuania warns country residents about Gold Line International, a suspected pyramid scheme, and applies to Prosecutor General’s Office
The Bank of Lithuania applied to Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office asking to start a pre-trial investigation into or take other preventive measures against the Gold Line International pyramid scheme suspected of illegal operations and cheating out money from people in Lithuania.
The Gold Line International scheme has placed on its website an add, written in the Lithuanian language, in which it encourages investing a certain amount of money into the scheme’s operations. The scheme participants have been promised monetary rewards which, as explained on the same website, would directly depend on the number of recruited participants and the total amount contributed. Also, people have been promised to have regular and gradually growing income upon joining the scheme.
“We can see obvious signs of a financial pyramid scheme, and therefore we have asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to open a pre-trial investigation or start criminal prosecution in order to protect public interest regarding allegedly criminal operations of the Gold Line International,” Vilius Šapoka, director of the Financial Services and Markets Supervision Department of the Bank of Lithuania, said.
He added that only licensed credit institutions have the right to receive deposits and other repayable funds from unauthorised market participants. The Gold Line International or other entities with similar title have not been issued such licence by the Bank of Lithuania. The aforementioned entity does not hold a payment institution licence either, giving the right to provide payment services.
The Bank of Lithuania calls on the country residents to think well before entrusting their money to any entity and make sure it holds a licence, also to weigh the promised return and related risks, and exercise caution in order to protect their savings. The list of authorised service providers is available on the Bank of Lithuania‘s website lb.lt/finansu_istaigos.
“We call on people to keep a wary eye on and always be sceptical about various prophets advertising fantastic interest rates or other possibilities to earn huge money in a short time. In many cases these are just fraudulent attempts,” Šapoka warned.
At the beginning this year, the Bank of Lithuania applied to the Prosecutor General’s Office regarding the operations of the MMM-2011 pyramid scheme. After watching it for a couple of months and collecting enough information on its criminal activities, prosecutors in collaboration with the officers of the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau have terminated its operations. The pre-trial investigation has revealed over 25 suspects alleged participants in the illegal financial activities; 11 individuals have been arrested.