Singaporean invited on 'business opportunity' Guangxi tour calls out pyramid scheme: 'They will just brainwash us'
When 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 shuttered from place to place for "back-to-back" small-scale seminars with Singaporeans involved in the "business".'Secretive govt-sanctioned programme'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.