21 September 2026 — Looi Kam Yong emerging as a new kingpin in organized commercial crime, a RM127 million seizure, a bauxite “megaproject” the Johor government says never existed, and the company filings that tie them together
KUALA LUMPUR — New facts emerge, to a seemingly closed case dating back to 2022; the GCG Asia Forex Scam. [1] A new individual emerges central to the facts gathered by authorities; Looi Kam Yong, and his operation of The One Minerals Mining Sdn Bhd. At the outset the operations seem nothing out of the ordinary, but Companies House (SSM) data reveal quite another story with E Law Review shedding a legal tussle between those named in the GCG Scam and Looi Kam Yong. What is key to the narrative, is a RM 150 million funnel of money into a company with no bauxite project approval, and a kingpin (Looi Kam Yong) alleged to have defrauded the shareholders of their money for a non-existent project.
A Recap of 2022
On the first morning of 2022, Bukit Aman’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department detained 10 suspects across five states and seized nine luxury vehicles, 64 watches and five kilograms of gold ingots, worth almost RM127 million [1]. Against that haul the fraud file looked thin: 23 cases under investigation, losses of RM2.9 million [1] — about one ringgit lost for every 44 seized.
That ratio is the central puzzle of GCG Asia, a purported foreign-exchange trading house whose founder, Yaw Foo Hoe — marketed as “Dato’ Sri Darren Yaw” — had already been convicted of attempted fraud in Cambodia two years earlier [2][3]. Company filings now point to where some of the people went next.
Key points
The Machine
GCG Asia solicited money on the promise of returns from forex, cryptocurrency, precious metal and energy trading [6]. Police said the syndicate had operated since 2018, with suspects acting as brokers, investor-search agents, financial managers and account holders [1]. Investors received a link and a password and watched profit accrue on a dashboard, but could not withdraw it; once enough had been collected, the operators cut communication [7]. The company held no valid broker licence anywhere it operated [8]. The returns existed only as pixels.
Phnom Penh: the borrowed prime minister
Cambodia’s national police chief said GCG Asia was not registered with the National Bank or relevant ministries and had already cheated investors in Malaysia and Indonesia [9]. Its website advertised that the prime minister and the central bank chairman would open its Phnom Penh headquarters, and used Hun Sen’s photographs as promotional material [10]. Hun Sen denied it publicly, and the Indonesian embassy described the firm as blacklisted [3][9]. Authorities shut the office and arrested Yaw; a court charged him with fraud attempt on 19 May 2019 [3]. He was convicted that October, sentenced to one year with five months suspended, and released around mid-2020 [2].
Return and reload
Through 2021 Yaw ran a reputation-laundering campaign: paid releases recast GCG Asia as an electric-vehicle firm, an anti-fraud commission, a green developer and a Singapore ed-tech start-up [12][2]. In September 2021 a paid announcement in the Bangkok Post introduced “John Darren Yaw” as chief executive of GCG Asia Advertising [13]. In December he filed takedown complaints against 22 domains carrying critical coverage [14]. Weeks later he was in police custody [7].
Looi Kam Yong and the Mining Connection
Company records searched by the author list Yaw Choon Kit, Yaw Foo Hoe and Looi Kam Yong as shareholders of The One Minerals Mining Sdn Bhd (TOMM), incorporated in Selangor on 3 August 2016 [4]. In August 2019, while Yaw was in Cambodian detention, TOMM and a Hong Kong investment firm announced a US$350 million bauxite project on 2,833 hectares of Felda land in Kota Tinggi, Johor, with an approved environmental impact assessment in hand [5].
There was no such project. The Johor state government said checks with the Environment Department confirmed no approval had been given to any private firm, no EIA report was on file, and the Kota Tinggi District Council had received no application to mine bauxite in the area [5]. In March 2021 paid releases syndicated to Nasdaq and Newswire nonetheless claimed Felda land concessions and named the Sultan of Johor a special advisor to the project [15][16]. No affiliation between the project and the Johor palace has ever been substantiated.
Looi Kam Yong’s Operation
TOMM is a registered Selangor company; its 2019 and 2021 publicity claimed state, federal and royal endorsement; the Johor government contradicted the 2019 claims; and the 2021 claims moved through the same paid-wire channels Yaw used for GCG Asia.
As per account filings and documentary evidence, GCG Asia investor funds flowed into TOMM, the same company that the Johor palace never confirmed on record with, Looi Kam Yong being a center to convert money from GCG Asia into machinery and mining assets for the group. A specific list of accounts of GCG Asia’s accounts were reported by ScamReview;
Looi Kam Yong voluntarily engaged in GCG’s money laundering operation by first billing for offroad machinery to a GCG linked company and receiving money from a money mule for a different product, the invoices cross RM 200 million, and funds are traced back to companies that sold non-existent machinery, and offered kickbacks to accounts that showed inflated losses, for a business that never commenced.
Why it matters
Four patterns recur. The returns were displayed, not paid, so recruitment rather than trading funded the scheme. The move from Indonesia to Cambodia to Malaysia exploited gaps between enforcement regimes; no cross-border freeze followed the conviction. Borrowed authority — a title, a prime minister, a sultan — reaches a far larger pool of victims, as Malaysian research on Ponzi prevention found [17], and under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 police may seize on reasonable suspicion, a lower bar than proving each victim’s loss [18] — so RM127 million may reflect victims who never came forward.
All named individuals are presumed innocent of any charge not adjudicated by a court.
References
