6/04/2021

Scams in India - So easy to make billions

https://www.zdnet.com/article/airtel-once-again-pinned-for-dragging-down-singtel-earnings/

An 'adverse' October ruling by the Supreme Court of India that has led to Indian telcos coughing up $13 billion in fees has wiped out the positive numbers from Singtel's second quarter earnings.

Singtel's Indian associate, Bharti Airtel, has allocated 2.9 billion rupees (SG$5.5 billion) for payments, which has translated to Singtel's earnings as a SG$1.93 billion pre-tax hit, and SG$1.4 billion post-tax.

This has left Singtel with a SG$668 million net loss for the second quarter to September 30, undoing increases in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) and increases in associate revenue. 

What the heck is happening? It is so easy to scam a company in India to pay and pay, in the billions just by a simple court ruling.  By the time this scam is over, I wonder how much is left of Singtel's investment in India. Not forgetting other Singapore's investment, like DBS India  etc etc.

Now, is this a rule of law or lawlessness, or a scam?

It is so scary to think of the possibilities of what can happen in India.

Is anyone wiser?

There are many ways to skin a cat. It all depends on how willing or how stupid is the cat.

PS. The conversion rate is by the papers reporting this news. The conversion rate of 1 rupee is S$0.0181.  There is a 2 decimal place difference or 100 rupees = S$1.81.  2.9b rupees =S$52.6m.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

In India it's not many ways to skin a cat but many ways to milk a cow until the breasts run dry, especially a foreign cow . .

Anonymous said...

Just on foreign exchange translation losses alone, how much have Singapore investors lost in India during the last 2 decades?

At end of year 2004 the USD/INR exchange rate was 43.66 and USD/SGD was 1.6902.

Today the USD/INR was last at 73.00 and USD/SGD last at 1.3282.

That means the Singapore dollar strengthened against the US dollar while the Indian rupee weakened against the greenback since 2004.

Effectively the INR/SGD cross rate fell from 0.0387 in 2004 to just 0.0181 today - a whopping 53% of Indian rupee depreciation against the Sing!

Queen of Hearts said...

To the cunning, highly corrupted and widely interconnected businessmen, who know how to grease the judges behind closed doors in India, Singapore has become Suckerpore, an easi-peesi piece of delicious and sweet mutton.

Bookworms can never do business successfully even in home ground Singapore (think of NOL and SPH), let alone in the snake pits of India.

Anonymous said...

Some are still asking how much did Singapore made from India investment.

The correct question should be how many billions lost in India, in S$ not rupees.

The sum is so huge that no one dares to ask. Now it is dumping good money to save bad money down the drain. They are so desperate to want to recover some losses and furiously dumping more good money in and likely all will go into a bottomless dark pit.

Anonymous said...

Never mind. Just keep pumping into the black hole. It is for the long term investment.

Problem is, will there be anything worthwhile left after one court ruling after another. No doubt the Indians are skinning the cat, in many different ways. First DBS, now Singtel. Who is next?

jjgg said...

Dbs n singteln sembcorp have the balls to enter the Indian transactions ?
Think it originated from the mother of all black swamps

Humanity said...

Indian DBA (Database Administrator) can just export your personal information (e.g. Singpass, Singheath, etc) and sell to dark sites for 50 cents to 1 dollars per record then take a flight back home and you can't find him. And he instantly becomes millionaire.

Humanity said...

If you are selling technologies such as Huawei, Mobile phones, Drone, Electrical goods, mobile Apps, all consumer technologies and produced in China for competitive prices you can make billions of dollars in India. Investing in services such as smart city, banking, telco, etc all losing huge money.

Humanity said...

Can someone tell me how much economy super powers US and China and G7 countries have invested in India? I know Singapore topple them all and I want to know by how much? If India is a good place to earn big money why the US and western countries not investing more than Singapore? Is singapore so stupid? GCT last time openly promote India fever, now what happen?

Anonymous said...

Stupidity has no cure. And the stupids would strut around acting like they are very smart. Ask that one that got kicked out of India thinking that the Indians would be grateful to him.

The Indians, after doing all kinds of shit stuff to attack China, joined Quad so think very highly of themselves, wanted help from the Americans to send more vaccines and aids but got lip service and nothing else, are now knocking at the door of China begging for help.

China told them bluntly that there is no love lost, so get lost. After China poured in so much aid into India, not a word of thanks, not even mentioned, except criticism. Think China so stupid, still want to help?

Go ask the stupidity has no cure cunty, maybe they would pour in more billions into the black pit.

Anonymous said...

Is India grateful to DBS for bailing out their failing banks? In fact they wanted to pile on more misery on DBS. This is the kind of treatment you get for playing with snakes.

Anonymous said...

China is also investing in India but not in big time and big businesses such as banking, real estate and high tech, like the highly educated fools of Singapore.

China is investing in consumer goods and services, infrastructure goods and services, energy and short term projects.

There is no such a thing as long-term investment in any foreign country, especially in debt-ridden countries such as India and some of the African and Latin American countries.

Only idiots talk about long-term investments in a foreign country such as India and Indonesia where corruption is so serious and widespread, from top to bottom. In such corrupted places, before you can talk about investment, you have to talk about how to grease the top brasses, politicians, judges and police first.

Sometimes, you have slao to grease the military too, especially in places such as Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.

Anonymous said...

China must have learned a very important and valuable lesson not to rely or trust the USA or USA companies in all important necessities, like chips and semi-conductors, and must build up it's leverage by being self reliant. It may take more years to catch up, but I believe the Chinese can do it looking at the way they have succeeded in space, AI, super computers and manufacturing. The tech base is already there and progress going forward in high tech will be much faster than the past two decades.

When China reaches the self reliant stage, those companies that did them in will suffer the consequences. What does not kill China will make her stronger. The market in China is big and no foreign big companies can ignore doing business with it. It is suicidal. Further, by then China's domestic demand, which the Government is encouraging, will sustain the manufacturing base well enough. Decoupling with the USA will not lead to China's collapse.

Anonymous said...

India where got scams? India is the bank fraud capital of the world and and scams are normal daily happenings. Don't be alarmed.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

With Huawei using its own operating system, Qualcomm and google will lose a big chunk of their business. This one they must say thank you t Clown Trump. How many Americans are going to lose their jobs with these two big tech company scaling down operations?

Anonymous said...

While HarmonyOS could find success in Huawei’s home market of China, it may face challenges in international markets.

Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS dominate the mobile operating system market. And on smartwatches, Apple has its WatchOS while Google last month launched a revamped version of its Wear operating system. The two U.S. technology giants have also been focusing on software for in-car entertainment too.

Both companies also have a huge base of app developers and the world’s most popular apps on their platform. That is one area in which Huawei could struggle.

“The only thing (HarmonyOS) still lacks is the big marquee western developers,” Shah said.

Huawei’s app store is missing major names such Google apps, which are important to users abroad. Facebook meanwhile is available but not for direct download from AppGallery.

Shah said certain continents like Europe and Africa could provide an opportunity for Huawei. However, the Chinese firm will most likely have to deal with the reputational fallout from U.S. sanctions.

“Huawei faces huge challenges outside China,” Wood of CCS Insight said. “There has been a palpable loss of consumer confidence in the brand as a result of the US sanctions that will be challenging to overcome as it pivots into new areas.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/02/huawei-harmonyos-operating-system-launched-on-smartphone-smartwatch.html

Anonymous said...

Yet a new operating system is probably not the restorative its own smartphone business really needs. A much bigger problem than loss of access to Google's software is being cut off from TSMC, a Taiwanese chip foundry that uses American technology inside its fabs. Alternatives to TSMC's state-of the-art 5- and 7-nanometer designs simply do not exist for Huawei. And without them, Huawei's top-end smartphones cannot compete against the very best from Apple, Samsung et al.

Sanctions have already been crippling, according to analysts. Last summer, before the latest sanctions came into effect, Huawei claimed about a fifth of the international market for smartphones, according to data from Counterpoint Research. By the first quarter of this year, its market share had slumped to just 4%.

Even the Chinese seem to have been abandoning Huawei. Its first-quarter sales in China were a third less than it shipped in the previous quarter, says Counterpoint. The winners have been other Chinese brands such as realme, Oppo and Vivo, none of which currently features on the same US trade blacklist that names Huawei.

https://www.lightreading.com/iot/huawei-should-not-expect-harmony-whatever-it-calls-its-os/d/d-id/769957

Anonymous said...

Will phone makers outside China adopt HarmonyOS?

Huawei has said it will make HarmonyOS an open-source software available to any phone maker who wants to use it (much like the open-source Android operating system on which it is based). But HarmonyOS will be a harder sell outside of China, where consumers are more likely to want mainstream Western apps and the full Google Play Store, and governments are more likely to face diplomatic pressure from the US to abandon Huawei technology.

https://qz.com/2016193/will-huaweis-android-knockoff-appease-chinas-technology-hawks/

Anonymous said...

TSMC and Apple cannot afford to lose China's market. TSMC also has big factories in China making its chips. And the chips are needed by Apple to sell in China. Without the Chinese market, Apple's sales will fall dramatically just like Huawei.

There is no big white hope to replace China as the manufacturing base for chips. The big black hope is hopeless. TSMC is paying a heavy price trying to locate there and got ambushed by the virus. Now has to incur all the overhead costs and labour costs but no production.

Anonymous said...

Will the ability of Harmony OS's ability to work with IOT be a threat to Andriod and Apple IOS? I am not a tech person. so would someone clarify for me?

This fiasco of diplomatic pressure accusing Huawei of security risk is a scam and nothing more. Trump told and forbid all his allies not to trust Huawei because it spied on them. But Trump never tell his allies that the USA itself is spying on them instead. Germany, France, Sweden and Norway and their secrets are being used by the USA to blackmail them when opportunity arises, making them obey or else, thanks to another EU member, Denmark. The EU is now being played left, right and centre by the USA.

Many believe that the USA forbid those above EU countries from using 5G as that will prevent the USA from spying on them. It is as simple as that and they fell for the scam.

Anonymous said...

‘Hang them all’: India’s scammers profit from pandemic misery

Chandrakant, 36, who worked at the stock market, died on May 1, leaving his homemaker wife looking for a job to help look after his ailing parents.

India passes 300,000 coronavirus deaths as mass graves found along Ganges

India has a long history of audacious scams ripping off ordinary people, including beyond its borders.

In just one typical case, in December police uncovered up a call centre that allegedly defrauded 4,500 Americans out of US$14 million.

Impersonating US officials, they told victims that their bank accounts were being used by drug cartels and that the only option was to convert their assets into bitcoin – which the gang would then cash in.

One elaborate scam involving police and doctors that emerged in 2019 saw hundreds of villagers in Haryana declared dead in road accidents to claim insurance.

Investigators say many scammers have turned their attention to ripping off desperate Covid-19 patients and relatives as India suffers a devastating coronavirus surge.

Narang, a private company executive in Noida, said he was swindled by a sophisticated scam when he was desperately looking for an oxygen concentrator for a sick friend.

“I came across a link for a supplier which looked genuine, and even had a catalogue with different models. The prices too were competitive,” Narang said.

“I spoke with a person on the phone. He asked for about 45,000 rupees in two instalments. I was sure it was genuine and even recommended this supplier to another acquaintance.” The device never arrived.

His case is one of at least 600 investigations launched by police in New Delhi alone in recent weeks with people desperately looking for oxygen, hospital beds and drugs.

Hang them all... This isn’t just mental or financial, they are playing with human life Narang, victim of India’s Covid-19 swindlers

“These criminals saw it as an opportune moment to make an entry,” said senior Delhi police officer Shibesh Singh.

His crime branch teams have already arrested many scammers, including a gang that made and sold counterfeit doses of the antiviral drug Remdesivir for up to 40 times the market price.

“These people were producing fake vials which cost them about 20 rupees and [they] sold it in the market for anything above 10,000 rupees,” Singh said.

In another case, a gang repainted fire extinguishers and sold them as oxygen cylinders, while another posed as doctors offering non-existent hospital beds.

This week, six men were reportedly arrested on suspicion of washing, repackaging and selling several tonnes of used surgical gloves from hospitals.

“We can only urge the people to be extra cautious while approaching such contacts for online help,” Singh said.

Some victims are demanding tough punishments. “Hang them all,” Narang said. “If not that, then the government should ensure life imprisonment. This isn’t just mental or financial, they are playing with human life.”

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3136005/hang-them-all-indias-scammers-profit-coronavirus-misery