Chapter 138: The Brook Company Scam

'James, I think you might not be thinking clearly today. You need to calm down. I'm giving you three days off, and you can come back to work next Monday!'

'Mr. General Manager, I don't think I've ever been more clear-headed in my life. The so-called disposal of mortgaged properties is just a way to take advantage of us in the end. What bonus of 200,000 US dollars? I don't know when you'll ask me to pay it back, just like the last bonus of 150,000 US dollars. I still have the company's lawyer's letter in my hands!'

'James, stop it, you're telling the biggest joke of the century! There's no logic to what you're saying, it's all nonsense! You say the company gave you a bonus of 150,000, but you didn't have any outstanding performance, nor did you bring any huge benefits to the company, so why would the company give you a bonus of 150,000? I think you're just making things up, you'd be better off becoming a screenwriter in Hollywood!'

'You can deny it, but you can't deny the company's lawyer's letter, it's definitely not a forgery!'

'But the fact is that you forged it. I don't know what you're up to, but this is the worst kind of behaviour. Starting today, James, you're fired!"

James and the general manager argued back and forth in the conference room, neither one budging. In the end, James listened to the general manager's threat to fire him and he smiled and said, 'Finally fired me? This is really very good news, and I have no intention of staying in this company that is about to go bankrupt. You, general manager, will soon be out of a job too. Do you want to read a book?'

After that, James looked around again and continued, 'But everyone is innocent. I'm here to tell you that the Devil's Graveyard is coming soon. You'd better get out of here and stop working for the devil...'

This time, James's words were rudely interrupted by the general manager, who pointed at the door and shouted at him, 'I want you to get out of here right now, right now! Get out!'

Facing the general manager's hysteria, James smiled at him and said, 'It's easy for you to let me go, but you won't have the chance to find me again.'

'Get out! The company will never need a scumbag like you!'

So James left the company in the general manager's angry shouting. He took the elevator to the basement parking lot of the building and got into an ordinary-looking Buick, which was Zhou Ming's car.

'How is it? Have you settled everything at the company?' Zhou Ming asked, looking at him.

James smiled and nodded in reply, 'Of course, and I probably won't have another opportunity like this in my life. Mr. Zhou Ming, you don't know, I scolded the general manager to my heart's content!'

'Then congratulations on your dream coming true,' Zhou Ming casually congratulated, then took out a check from his pocket and handed it to James, 'This is a check for 700,000 US dollars from a Swiss bank, you can cash it at any branch. If you're worried, I can go to the bank with you now.'

James shook his head and said, 'That's not necessary. I have complete trust in you, Mr. Zhou Ming.'

'Okay, but since your actions may still be prosecuted, you must hide for a while.' Zhou Ming said, taking out an airline ticket and handing it to James, 'This is a ticket to Guatemala. I hope it will be helpful.'

James took the ticket and said a very big thank you to Zhou Ming, then got out of the car and bowed deeply to Zhou Ming again in silence.

Zhou Ming then closed the car door and let the car drive away. After driving out of the underground parking lot, Zhou Ming took out his mobile phone and dialed the phone number of Lowell family patriarch Louis: 'The matter has been taken care of. Your media can expose all that stuff. Whether it can achieve the best effect is up to you.'

On the other end of the line, Louis laughed heartily, 'Don't you worry about it. I've been waiting for this day for a month!'

So the next day, a news story suddenly appeared on New England TV: Brook Investment Company had lost 600 million of its clients' funds!

The subprime mortgage crisis caused by a large number of minority bankruptcies has affected Brighton for a month. The company that has been most affected by this crisis is Brook Investment Company. However, with the subsequent massive layoffs at Brook Investment Company and the sale of its funds and mortgaged properties, it has managed to hold on. However, recently our station has received another piece of news, saying that the reason why Brook has been able to hold on is because he has lost money from his clients.

So what's going on? According to information provided by an anonymous source within Brook Investment, Brook Investment has been lying to all its investment clients, claiming that there are extremely low-priced mortgaged properties that need to be sold, and that if any clients need them, they can be sold directly. Of course, if the client does not need them for the time being, they can also be treated as an investment in the mortgaged property, and Brook Investment will pay a commission of one to five percent for each transaction.

This kind of investment return is undoubtedly very attractive, but according to an insider at Brook Investment Company, in fact, there is no sale of any mortgaged property at all, and everything is just a scam orchestrated by Brook Investment Company.

After Brook Investment Company receives the investment from the customer, it will be kept in a unified account, and then a reward will be paid according to the amount invested by the customer. In fact, no transactions have been carried out. Brook Investment Company has only returned a very small part of the money invested by the customer to the customer, while more money is still left in the account.

I believe that those of you who know a little about economics must have already understood that this is actually the simplest form of Ponzi scheme. So what is the purpose of Brook Investment Company doing this? According to the insider, this is to enable the company to survive this economic crisis.

So how much money did Brook Investment Company actually defraud investors of through this Ponzi scheme? The answer is 600 million US dollars!

As the news broke on New England TV, it immediately caused a huge stir in Brighton.

After all, Brook Investment was a well-known company in Brighton, and its chairman was a senior senator from Massachusetts. How could it have done such a thing? So initially some people were sceptical.

'Brook Investment Company is a very formal investment company. Although we have suffered losses in this subprime mortgage crisis, we will also try to recover the losses through our own efforts. We have always firmly believed that our customers are our god, and we will never play any Ponzi scheme tricks to defraud our customers' investments! This news report by New England TV is absolutely slanderous. I have already contacted a lawyer, and the company will defend its rights through legal means!' Brook said indignantly in an interview.

However, the FBI's final investigation results were a slap in Brooke's face, because it was found that all the clients' money had been transferred to a private account, and all the investors' returns had also been paid out of this private account.

This result left Brooke dumbfounded, and he once again defended himself in an interview, saying, 'This kind of thing could never happen at Brooke Investments. It was all manipulated by that broker, and the company had no knowledge of it! And the company has already reported it to the police, and I'm confident that the police will definitely catch the broker who actually committed the crime!'

However, this explanation was obviously not convincing enough, so one reporter immediately asked him, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Brook, if you say that neither you nor your company knew anything about this, then doesn't your company have a complete monitoring system? How could you have allowed an ordinary broker to move so much client money at will? Are all the accounts in your company personal?'

Following the lead of the first reporter, other reporters also asked almost the same question: 'The broker is indeed guilty, but if he can commit such a serious crime, does it mean that there are even more serious problems with Brook Investment?'

Facing these questions, Brook appeared to be extremely annoyed, but he could not help but answer patiently: 'This is not a problem of supervision, but there is a certain time limit for the company's account review. We will only conduct account reviews for the corresponding departments separately when a certain period of time has elapsed...'

Before Brooke could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a reporter: 'If I understand you correctly, Mr Brooke, you are admitting that there are certain regulatory loopholes within your company, and that is how your broker was able to embezzle 600 million of your clients' funds? If it wasn't for the escape of the so-called broker and the whistle-blowing by an insider, would there have been an even greater shortfall, or would the subprime mortgage crisis have occurred?'

As he listened to the reporter's increasingly aggressive questions, Brook suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. In the end, he couldn't stand it anymore and said, 'Can't you reporters ask some positive questions? Do you know that I am a senior senator in the state legislature, and my investment company is also a very historic company? Can't you help, but hope for his collapse? I tell you, if my company collapses, your TV station will be the one to go down tomorrow!'

...

Zhou Ming was lying in his hotel room watching TV at the time, while Lin Muqing was snuggled in his arms like a kitten.

Watching Brooke's somewhat hysterical performance on TV, Lin Muqing said disdainfully, 'This is unbearable. This Senator Brooke's psychological tolerance is really too poor. I really don't know how he was elected senator.'

Zhou Ming laughed, stroked Lin Muqing's face as he said, 'He is also very angry. I'm afraid he also knows that no matter if it's the subprime mortgage crisis or the shortfall of 600 million investment funds, I definitely manipulated it behind the scenes. But he just can't say anything. This anger is building up in his chest, and now he's being aggressively questioned by these reporters, I guess he's about to crack.'

Lin Muqing shrugged her shoulders and said, 'Serves him right. Who let him not be himself, but insist on being the dog of the Adams family? Especially since he also provoked Zhou Ming, he deserves to die!'

'But whether he deserves to die or not, I don't know. But we really have to thank him now, because if it weren't for his investment company, we would have found it difficult to get a property worth 600 million US dollars for 3 million US dollars, wouldn't we?' Zhou Ming continued, "Not to mention the fact that the promises made to those minorities will go unfulfilled, it would be a pity to lose so much potential return."

'Zhou Ming, you're becoming more and more like a big capitalist,' Lin Muqing said with a frown as she looked up at Zhou Ming.

But although Lin Muqing said this, she was very happy in her heart, because the 3,000 properties that she had obtained had all been rented back to the ethnic minorities. Although the pricing was different depending on the location and neighbourhood, the average was 700 US dollars a month, which was enough to generate 700,000 US dollars in the first month's rent alone. This was basically a guaranteed monthly income, and each property could generate at least 10 years of income, so how could one not be happy?

While Zhou Ming and Lin Muqing were happy, Zhou Ming's phone suddenly rang. Zhou Ming answered it, and it was Governor Edward calling. He said on the phone, 'I think there is a meeting you really need to attend.'