PUBLISHED ONSeptember 04, 2026 5:30 AMUPDATEDSeptember 05, 2026 2:14 AMBYLim KeweiWhen an ex-colleague offered Adrian Tan a partly sponsored trip to China's Guangxi province to learn about a "business opportunity", it seemed too good to pass up.
"Exactly what (the opportunity) is, I have no idea," the 47-year-old recounted to AsiaOne during an interview in August.
Tan, who works in marketing, agreed to join the 2018 trip as he believed he had "nothing to lose". He bore the cost of approximately $500 for round-trip flights but got free room and board as part of the arrangement.
In March 2018, he embarked to Nanning, Guangxi's capital city, on a five-day trip with that ex-colleague and another Singaporean he was not acquainted with.
Aside from brief sightseeing activities, Tan largely remembers being shuttled from place to place for "back-to-back" small-scale seminars with Singaporeans involved in the "business".
He said he was introduced to a "secretive government-sanctioned programme" that sought to "bring back" overseas individuals with Chinese roots by offering monetary incentives for every person referred to do business in the city.
But as Tan sat through the hours-long pitches from various Singaporeans, he could not figure out the selling point, and suspected that it could be a pyramid scheme.
"There is no product," Tan told AsiaOne. "I've done business before; I know there should be at least some product. If there's no product, the product is you."
Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and police said on Friday (Sept 4) that 52 Singaporeans in Guangxi have been arrested by Chinese authorities over suspected pyramid scheme activities.
Tan gave the lowdown on how this pyramid scheme in Guangxi worked in 2018: A person pays a 'membership fee' of $30,000 or $50,000 to join the group and receives three and five slots for each respective tiered pricing.
The slots allow the person to recruit people, or 'downlines'.
For every direct or indirect downline who subscribes to the scheme, the recruiter earns a portion of their 'membership fee'.
"The math was that if you paid $50,000 and completed all your slots, you could earn over $1 million," he alleged.
Despite having doubts about the programme, Tan admitted that he was "actually quite convinced" at one point.
"It's so easy to lose track of time over there. We just keep meeting different people, and they will just brainwash us," he described.
During the trip, he met various reputable people, including a nominee for Singaporean of the Year as well as a former Member of Parliament.
Tan told AsiaOne that a conversation with the former "gave me the impression that he has crossed $1 million in earnings".
To quell his doubts, the man went online to research the programme but couldn't find anything in English.
Inexplicably, he searched the internet again in Mandarin — and said he found a slew of videos and articles from various media outlets of similar pyramid schemes allegedly happening in Nanning.
In 2016, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council published an advisory on its website about the workings of a Taiwanese pyramid scheme in Nanning. It said victims underwent nearly the same experiences as Tan.
The man added that he could not, in all conscience, join the programme after learning that.
On the last day of the trip, he attended the final session where higher-level members of the scheme were present. Afraid of repercussions, he signed a "committment" to participate and paid a 328 yuan (S$60) fee.
Tan lodged a police report after returning to Singapore.
In it, he alleged that there were a total of 445 members in the group, and that a second group of Singaporeans also existed within the larger pyramid scheme.
Reflecting on his experience, he quipped: "It's a $500 (cost of flight tickets) lesson versus a $30,000 lesson."
According to Tan, recruitment for this pyramid scheme slowed during Covid-19, but efforts have recently renewed.
He believes that members involved in the scheme target individuals with extensive social networks as well as seniors.
"If you come in with a good network, your downline can be built very fast and your upline will stand to benefit," he explained to AsiaOne.
In August, AsiaOne found various social media posts warning of a "Nanning scam".
One such video was created by Singaporean property agent Freddie Lim, who alleged that he was told of an "investment" opportunity in Nanning on two separate occasions.
Speaking to AsiaOne, the 41-year-old said a friend had floated the idea to spend the June holidays in Nanning with his family when they met in May.
Lim, who did not suspect anything, seriously considered the idea and discussed it with his wife.
Then, at the start of June, he bumped into another friend who similarly struck up a conversation and mentioned Nanning.
"It was very casual. They both started from saying they went to Nanning – a very nice place to travel and cheap. Then slowly, they talked about this investment opportunity," he recalled.
Lim said he was not told much information about the investment, only that it was related to the city's growth.
Finding it odd that he had been approached twice in such a short span of time, he looked online and found posts about a pyramid scheme there.
@freddielimhdbcondosg Two different friends invited me to Nanning within a short period for an "investment opportunity." I did some research and found many discussions raising red flags. anyone else came across this? #PonziScheme #FinancialLiteracy #nanning ♬ original sound - @freddielim.realtor
Singapore's MFA and the police said on Friday that Singaporeans travelling or living overseas are subject to the laws of the countries they are in.
"Singaporeans are reminded to exercise caution when invited to take part in schemes involving the recruitment of participants or the upfront payment of substantial sums of money, whether overseas or locally."
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