Sail across the sea

Chapter 539 is just a good-for-nothing.
"The man you asked me to investigate, Sivard, my men have already found out. Here are the details about him."

In a small conference room at the Hachi Group's China office, Bob, rather unladylike, propped his feet up on the conference table and used a laser pointer to point at the projected information on the screen at the front of the conference room as he introduced it to Gao Fan.

Bob was sent to China by the group to establish an office, and he actually did set up the office in Ruizhang.

Hatch Group is an investment company, and Bob's job in China is to spend money, that is, to select suitable projects for investment. Gao Fan once jokingly said that Bob's task was to "spend money," and Bob actually quite enjoyed this pun, which can only be described as a difference between Chinese and American cultures.

Hatch Group itself does not possess industrial technology, so it does not directly invest in building factories. Instead, it evaluates existing projects or projects under planning on the market and selects promising projects to invest in.

Just as Bob had told Gao Fan, no one would look down on Ruizhang, a second-tier city with inconvenient transportation, when faced with the money in the Hatch Group's coffers. Every day, the office received all sorts of calls from all over the country, all recommending their projects to the Hatch Group. Some people even traveled thousands of miles to Ruizhang just to have a chance to meet with Mr. Bob.

When the office was first established, there were only Bob and his lackey Tan Jianjun, but now there are more than 20 people, half of whom came from state-owned enterprises to start their own businesses.

Hatch Group is powerful enough that it has high standards for hiring employees. Those who have left the company to start their own businesses all have special skills. Among them are two department-level cadres. However, when Bob pointed them out to Gao Fan, Gao Fan could not see any trace of their former official airs on their faces.

When Gao Fan received Bob's call and arrived at the office with Xu Dan, the company's office manager, he was questioned by the receptionist at the entrance. However, Bob quickly came out to greet him personally and instructed the receptionist that Gao Fan should not be stopped whenever he came in the future.

Bob led Gao Fan and his group to the conference room. Instead of showing them any printed materials, he took out a few slides, inserted them into the projector, and gave them a projection demonstration.

"Bob, aren't you tired of showing off like this all the time?" Gao Fan couldn't help but complain when he saw this.

Bob, however, was smug and said, "Gao Fan, that's because you're naive. In America, companies have to do this when they want to raise funds in the market. Investors don't bother to look at any documents; they only want to look at slides."

"Fine." Gao Fan was too lazy to argue with him anymore; he was more interested in what Bob was showing him.

The slide showed a half-body photo of a white man, next to a description that had been translated into Chinese.

"Sivad, a resident of Volusia County, Florida, graduated from the local community college and worked as a truck driver, bartender, and shop assistant. In 1990, he registered Lakenby International Trading Company, serving as its chairman. The company had a registered capital of $5, with zero revenue in 1991 and zero revenue from 1992 to the present. The company had only one employee, namely Sivard himself. Holy crap, isn't this guy just a scoundrel?!"

After Gao Fan finished reading the slides, he immediately swore.

“No way…” Xu Dan was dumbfounded. “Xiao Pei told me that this Lakenby International Trading Company is one of the top 10 multinational trading companies in Florida, with an annual turnover of several billion dollars. Also, this Siward is a PhD, a graduate of Harvard University…”

“I am lodging a protest with him on behalf of Harvard University,” Bob said seriously.

Gao Fan ignored Bob's boasting and asked Xu Dan, "Dandan, take another look. Are the names of people and companies correct?"

“It’s all right, it’s the name Xiao Pei told me. The photo is right too, Xiao Pei showed me a picture of her and Sivard, it’s him, but how could this be…”

Xu Dan stammered, her heart filled with mixed emotions. This Siward was the so-called American businessman Xiao Pei had met at the Spring Trade Fair. After meeting a few times, the two developed a romantic relationship, and Siward even promised Xiao Pei that he would help her immigrate to the United States.

Although Xiao Pei admired Western things, she still had some concerns. So she asked Xu Dan to tell Gao Fan about it, hoping that Gao Fan could use his connections in the United States to help her confirm Siwald's identity.

Gao Fan assigned this task to Bob, who had the company's legal department in the United States investigate it, and the result was the following conclusion.

“This isn’t surprising,” Bob said casually. “Many Chinese people want to immigrate to the United States, so this kind of business has emerged. They take advantage of these Chinese people’s eagerness to immigrate, claiming they can help them immigrate, and then get them to pay a lot of money.”

"Of course, this business is not specifically targeted at Chinese people. There is also the same business for people in South America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia."

"It's just fraud, you Americans call this business?" Gao Fan retorted irritably.

Bob wasn't annoyed. He chuckled and said, "Taking advantage of information asymmetry to earn rent is definitely business. If that's fraud, then who on Wall Street isn't a fraudster?"

“You win.” Gao Fan was too lazy to argue with Bob. This guy had a bit of a manic personality; the more you debated with him, the more excited he became. Gao Fan asked, “In your experience, did this Sivard associate with my classmate just to swindle money? Were there any other motives?”

"If possible... you know." Bob swallowed the rest of his sentence halfway through, after all, there was a lady like Xu Dan present, and he couldn't be too blunt.

"I mean, is there any possibility that he wanted to trick my classmate into going to the United States?"

"That's hard to say. After all, it would be quite costly to trick someone into going to the United States, and there are also some legal risks involved. I don't think Sivard would be willing to take that risk."

So it's just a scam?

"uh-huh."

"He traveled all the way to China just to scam my classmate out of money? My classmate's salary is so low, even if he gave him all of it, it wouldn't be enough to cover his plane ticket, would it?"

"Do you think he came all the way to China just to lie to your classmate?"

Gao Fan was speechless. He had to admit that Bob was right; this Sivard might be a master of time management. If he could fool several people at the same time, then earning back the cost of his plane ticket was entirely possible.

"Dandan, call Xiao Pei and ask her if Siward has asked her for money, and how much he asked for. Also, find out where Siward is now," Gao Fan instructed.

(End of this chapter)