KUALA LUMPUR - More than 600 Malaysians from all over the country, who were victims of an illegal investment scheme more than three years ago, turned up at the Jalan Duta Sessions Court yesterday to claim the money they had invested in a Ponzi scheme.

The third party claim was in relation to a businesswoman Raja Noor Asma, former director of FX Capital Consultant (M) Sdn Bhd, who was sentenced to seven years' jail and fined RM5 million in January after she pleaded guilty to 50 charges under the Anti-Money Laundering Act and four under the Securities Commission Act.

She was alleged to have fleeced 4,000 investors of RM100 million (S$41.66 million) during the year she was running her wealth management business, without a licence.

Those who invested included a Syarie court judge and legal practitioners.

The appearance of the claimants yesterday was following a court order for them to turn up in court on April 1 to make their third party claims and to show cause why the money should not be forfeited by the government.

According to court documents, RM8.3 million had been recovered from Raja Noor's personal, company and fixed deposit accounts.

One witness, Badrul Hisham, 35, told the court yesterday that he invested RM113,000 when he went to FX Capital office and saw a room with more than 20 employees analysing the stock market and making calls to brokers.

He said although the form he filled was a loan form, he was told that he was making an investment and that a loan form was used instead of an investment form because FX Capital did not have a brokerage licence.

He said this when questioned by lawyer Fakhrul Azman Abu Hasan.

Another investor, Mohd Imran Razali, said he had invested RM630,000 in the scheme and got back only RM54,000.

Investor Shahrom Hadi, 38, pleaded with the court to consider their plight and return the money they invested.

Yagoo Subramaniam, a lawyer representing 39 claimants, said the claimants were laymen who had invested their hard earned money.

"Why didn't Bank Negara do anything for three years? The Securities Commission has also been sleeping for three years," he said, to thunderous applause from the claimants in the gallery.

Judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah fixed April 13 for decision.