It’s almost one year since my old employers got raided. Luckily I’d been away from them for a long time, and I do feel sorry for many of the innocent people who lost their jobs. It must have been awful and a terrible shock to them.
Obviously, it should be very much clear to everyone that I’ve no involvement in any of this investigation, and I’ve offered my services to the authorities to help them in any way possible, should they need it. I’m sure you knew this already, but it’s just worth being clear on it!
There is a reason that King and co are no longer operating and under police investigation and though I won’t speculate except where the facts permit, I’ll pretty much rely on the facts contained within the following judgment in Chinese, as shown below.
The above is a snippet of a judgment from a chinese court that links King Gaming Isle of Man and Manx Internet Commerce (MIC) to what seems to have been ongoing and massive scamming activity conducted by at least six individuals who were working for various teams within King and MIC on the island.
They all admit to carrying out these scam activities, having been relocated from the Philippines on visas by the company, carrying on their behaviour on the Isle of Man.
These people engaged in activities that scammed and cheated people out of amounts in the millions, according to the judgment.
What is interesting from this judgment is that they all appeared to work in separate teams, suggesting strongly that the overall fraud headline figure could very well be considerably higher.
The evidence that I’ve seen from other sources including the BBC strongly suggests upwards of 100 staff engaged in this sort of activity.
There are more sources in mandarin that I’ve seen that are much more explicit on what was going on, but I won’t link them here – again, for obvious reasons.
The public updates from the official Receiver that King and MIC had around 65 million and 30 million in their bank accounts gives more clarity to the overall picture, as shown below.
The facts don’t lie!
The translation of the judgment is rough but very much clear on what took place.
According to this BBC article, they were based first at the Seaview Hotel and then latterly this office space at Howard Pearson house in Douglas.
Actually, right next to where the new HQ was going to be!
Some more information that has emerged is about the ultimate ownership of the company.
Above and pictured is “Bill Morgan” aka Lingfei Liang. UBO of King Gaming (and other companies including Manx Internet Commerce / Champion Tech) and the boss that was referred to in the judgment. I’ve never formally met him, but I did see him at our stand in the Philippines in 2019 at an industry show.
This above is Yanhao (Kevin) Zhu. Former boss of the Isle of Man “operation”, and former director of Champion Tech. He was my boss.
He’d apparently worked in “fintech” (ahem) for Morgan for a number of years, and as such was a trusted lieutenant.
These guys will not like being named or pictured, I won’t be popular for doing so. I’m not exactly stressed out about that, if I’m honest.
These facts above notwithstanding, some people ( with a grudge) are clearly peeved that, not only did I win an employment tribunal case (*) on all grounds, they’re also clearly jealous that I left earlier than them, judging from their colourful messages:
…these are some of the lovely message I got from a lovely chap called “Mark O”, who I’d imagine is upset that King Gaming got closed down.
If everything that is being suggested is true, then I certainly won’t lose any sleep over being harassed by the very people who clearly allowed this stuff to happen on their watch.
I can easily refute any spurious crap they might come up with, and I’m not going to give their rubbish the light of day: these sorts of things simply don’t deserve that type of oxygen!
As directors and officers, ultimately they had clear responsibilities and oversight – and it is on them to justify their actions or inaction, whichever is true.
So – they are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves and they ought to be angry.
….at each other and themselves!
The more I’ve heard about what happened, the more I’m utterly sickened, disgusted and horrified.
Let’s see what happens from here, but I think it’s fair to say that we all expect that, where appropriate, justice will be served once any process has run its course.
(*) I was one of the first ones if not the first to raise concerns about working conditions at King, working til 3am and then back at your desk at 8am or your visa cancelled doesn’t sound like reasonable working conditions…..see here for more.
More images from the Philippines in 2019 :-
