Trial begins for 3 involved in Alhan's 'Ponzi scheme'

The Criminal Court has started the trial of three shareholders of Kings Capital Holdings Pvt Ltd, which allegedly ran a Ponzi scheme led by former MP Alhan Fahumy to extort large sums of money from people in the name of forex trading.

Police launched an investigation in March 2022 into allegations that Kings Company had introduced an investment scheme in violation of financial securities laws and regulations in Maldives, as well as money laundering.

The investigation was completed and the case was filed with the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) on November 13, along with the other two shareholders of the company. A total of 39 charges have been filed against the three men.

The defendants and the charges are:

The first hearing in the case was held on May 14 this year. However, the case could not be continued that day due to lack of lawyers for the accused.

Two months after being given the opportunity to appoint lawyers, the hearing was held on Thursday. The prosecution presented charges at Thursday's hearing.

According to the prosecution' charge sheet, a reason cited in the charge sheet is that Kings, the family company of Alhan Fahmy, Shahban Fahmy and Shazban Fahmy, had benefited financially from various investment packages of King's Forex Trading, which was open to the public in 2021 and 2022. By taking money in different amounts from various common people on the pretext of providing monetary benefits, they did not do what they had promised and scammed the money.

Counsel Ali Saeed, who is representing the three accused in the case, asked for 15 days to respond to the charges. He said the reason he needed more time to answer the charges was that there were unclear issues in the charges as he was appointed as the lawyer this morning.

Therefore, Judge Ismail Shafeeu, who is hearing the case in the Criminal Court, granted the request. The next hearing will be held in the middle or late of next month, he said. Shafeeu asked the lawyer to prepare to respond to the charges.

In May and December last year, the civil court had ordered a victim of Alhan's scheme to be paid more than MVR 90,000 and three others more than MVR 700,000. In February, he was ordered to pay over millions to two others.

The central bank Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) issued a statement on March 10, 2022 urging the public to be vigilant against a scheme that was extorting money from the public through social media platforms such as Facebook and Telegram, promising double the money they invest with every investment.