Did PM Lee Hsien Loong Just Encouraged Singaporeans To Gamble With Bitcoin?

Our Dear Leader PM Lee has just won a monumental legal battle in his libel suit against media magnate Terry Xu of The Online Citizen. Congratulations are in order.  The PM is battle-scared, having fought so many battles. We have to understand, the PM sits at the apex of Singapore Inc, a position much envied by many, not just because of the high salaries but the almighty power the position wields. He therefore has to be on guard at all times against anyone and everyone who tries to fire libelous missiles at him. Generals can take great shit and rocks and bullets, but the PM knows it's not about him, but the throne at the apex. Any insinuation against him has the potential of bringing the Singapore Inc down. It can destabilise the country. The sword of the blind Lady must be brought to bear against dare devils like Terry.

But all Terry did was to allow the publication of an article relating to some comments by somebody else regarding the dead tale of the house at Oxley Road. Those unaware of the full background of Terry's dare-devil act might be forgiven if they had thought the scoundrel was caught in the basement of Parliament House tinkering with some dangerous stuff.

Reminds me of a time when I was a corporal in the army. There was a guy in the detention cell at the guard room. He had a reputation of notoriety far beyond reality. It is the responsibility of guard commanders to ensure he is monitored. When he is let out to relief himself, the commander had to handcuff him to the pipes in the toilet. Such treatment was obviously applied only to the most dangerous prisoner. One weekend it came my turn as guard commander. I had high anticipation thinking there was a dangerous prisoner on my watch. But as it turned out, after I checked and spoken with him, he was in for a minor offence of AWOL for a day, and the reputation of him was over-inflated. Just to complete my story of that night. On his toilet call, I felt it unnecessary to indignify him with chaining him to the pipes. As Murphy's Law would have it, the timing for his call of nature was bad. The duty officer turned up to inspect the guards and check on the infamous prisoner. I was prepared for court martial for failure of duty, but to my surprise, when the officer opened the toilet door, the prisoner had his hand cuffed to the pipe. He had heard the guard inspection orders and self-secured himself, saving my butt.

Now to the purpose of this blog. I came across a CNA article that suggested PM Lee has been doing some sideline investments. It said "And two days ago, Lee Hsien Loong appeared on CNA’s "Asia First" and announced a new "wealth loophole" which he says can transform anyone into a millionaire within 3-4 months. The 69-year-old politician urged everyone in Singapore to jump on this amazing opportunity before the big banks shut it down for good." (Read full article here) Is was all about Bitcoin trading. Our PM is an astute investor, what more with a wife who handles billions of dollars of our sovereign wealth. Surely we all know this is a scam. But do we? Because the comments section betray the ignorance of many who really thought it was a CNA article and therefore true. I mean we all trust our mainstream media, right?

If something online does not seem believable, the easiest think way to confirm is to look at the URL. This was not from CNA website. It had URL www.ballost.org. This scammer is pretty good. The date of the article is coded. Whenever someone views the page, a current date is shown. That tends to put some viewers off-guard.

Now the problem I have is why does'nt our PM do something about this. Why waste the effort and time and exasperation of the citizenry chasing a faux media magnate for something that is at worst, a silly indiscretion. Why win an inconsequential skirmish and loose the war of public opinions. I am sure the whole of Singapore will cheer him on, and fully behind him, had he used his tremendous resources to pursue the scammer who put out the 'CNA' article.

By the way, I did some simple Sherlock Homes. The IP address showed the scammer is located at an unincorporated community called Mount Vernon, near Cheney Reservoir, Kansas, USA.  It is a phishing site, one that counterfeits web pages that duplicate legitimate business web pages for the purpose of eliciting financial, personal or other private information from the users.

Now, go get him, Mr Lee. Protect Singaporeans from these scammers. Stop wasting time with people like Terry or one man holding a smiley placard, whether at Parliament House or at a food court.