Recently, I saw someone discussing pyramid schemes and scams again, which reminded me of the once sensational MBI case. Speaking of which, the name Zhang Yufa might be unfamiliar to many, but the scale of his scams in Southeast Asia is truly beyond imagination.

A Malaysian Chinese, under the guise of virtual currency, forcibly defrauded 500 billion RMB from China and Southeast Asia, with over 2 million victims. This is not a small case, but a large-scale fraud that has lasted for more than ten years.

Interestingly, Zhang Yufa’s "rise to wealth" is actually quite clear. During the 2008 financial crisis, he opened a place called Red Island Coffee, claiming that investing 6,000 ringgit could make you a shareholder, with a 3-fold increase in 5 years. At first glance, it sounds very tempting, but what was the result? Ten dishes on the coffee shop menu all had crosses, meaning none of them existed. This is a typical Ponzi scheme—using illusory promises to attract funds, while the physical business never actually materialized.

After the first scam collapsed, Zhang Yufa did not reflect on himself; instead, he became bolder. He then started the Dream Circle Group, claiming a return rate of 70%-90%, and later upgraded to MBI, launching a virtual currency called M Coin that "only rises and never falls." Each scam was more sophisticated than the last and harder to recognize.

The most ruthless part was that during the MBI period, he bought off officials at various levels of government and even engaged in charity activities. Victims even called him "Father Zhang," treating him as a patriarch. This is the highest level of deception—it's not just about stealing money, but about building a belief system that makes people willingly become "cutting leeks."

When MBI completely collapsed in 2019, 2 million Chinese realized they had been scammed. Those who knelt on the streets of Malaysia to petition can only be imagined how desperate they were. And what did Zhang Yufa do? He fled to Thailand to become a monk. The nice-sounding reason was "cultivating oneself," but in reality, it was to evade capture. The most absurd part was that he claimed it was a "short-term monastic retreat" for only 7 days. Seven-day monk? Clearly, he was just stalling.

It wasn’t until July 2022 that, through joint operations by Chinese, Malaysian, and Thai police, Zhang Yufa was arrested in Thailand and then extradited to China for trial.

Looking back at the entire case, what’s most worth warning about is not how clever Zhang Yufa was, but that each scam he devised could find a new packaging. Virtual currencies, blockchain, physical stores… scammers are always evolving. And what about victims? They are often blinded by words like "high returns," "low risk," and "quick wealth."

In essence, the characteristics of such pyramid scams are just a few: no actual products, the company itself does not profit, promises of extremely high returns, requiring membership fees, and developing downlines. Recognizing these features is not difficult; what’s hard is the greed inherent in human nature. There’s no such thing as a free lunch; what falls from the sky is often not a pie but a trap. Zhang Yufa fell, but similar scams continue because there are always people who believe they will be the lucky ones hit by the hammer.