Financial predators: dirt of the dirt

How low can crooks stoop? How about ripping off garment workers? That’s mighty low.

Such are the allegations hitting the press this week, as a Chinese couple was accused of running a financial scam out of their Garapan strore.

The judge, quite reasonably, set bail at a cool hundred thou, though, unfortunately, he stopped short of scheduling a public flogging for the miscreants if a guilty verdict is rendered.

A number of garment workers, as you no doubt know, are said to have lost all their savings, which they reportedly forked over to the Garapan couple in some kind of dingbat savings or investment scheme that I really haven’t sorted out.

But the Department of Public safety sorted things out, and swooped in and snared the alleged crooks just as they were, from all appearances, getting ready to get out of Dodge, or, as we used to say in California, “take the ha ha to Baja.” (Baja is the northwestern lobe of Mexico, known as Baja California).

Of course, praise for the DPS’ good crime solving in this case is deafening in its silence. If a crime goes unsolved, everyone criticizes the cops, but when they solve a case and arrest the bad guys, nobody offers a thumbs up. Well, nobody ever claimed that gratitude is Saipan’s strong suit.

The susceptibility of garment workers, most of whom don’t have Northwestern MBA’s in finance, to financial scams hit the radar screen just a few weeks ago. The Great Stupid Tsunami Scare of 2000 send a ripple of panic through the community, and some sleazy characters duped the naive and innocent into pulling their money out of legitimate banks and handing it over to the crooks. So, a word of advice: if you see a car with “Bank of Fred” written on the door, you might want to think twice about making cash deposits through the driver’s side window.

It’s not up to me to offer hip shooting solutions from here on the sidelines, but maybe employers of susceptible alien workers could cook up a little flyer on basic financial management here, as in the fact that an FDIC insured bank is, indeed, insured, and the safest place to put your money (second only to that guy with the eyepatch at the cock fights, of course).

As for anyone who speaks English as a first language, I have no sympathy for them if they lose everything they’ve got in stupid pyramid schemes and related nonsense. Raw greed should go punished, and, better yet, if they wind up starving they’re doing Darwinism a favor. Every so often the cops in the United States make a big splash out of catching the guys behind these Ponzi schemes, and it always struck me as a waste of time.

As for our alien workers, though, it’s a different story. They’ve got no idea how financial systems work here (come to think of it, neither do any of us)–how could they? Only the dirt of the dirt would prey on this crowd. I hope the wheels of justice show no mercy to such miscreants, and I’m still open to the public flogging idea.

Stephens is an economist with Stephens Corporation, a professional organization in the NMI. His column appears three times a week: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Mr. Stephens can be contacted via the following e-mail address: ed4Saipan@yahoo.com.