Malaysia's Forest City, a $100bn artificial island project once billed as a dream paradise for 700,000 people, is thought to house less than 1% of that number a decade on. In mid-July police raided 32 premises across the complex, arresting 335 people — 309 of them Chinese nationals — and seizing computers, phones and modems used, they say, to run cryptocurrency and romance scams targeting victims abroad.
Investors who bought in early, like Jason Deng with his five apartments, describe being sold a golden city that never materialised amid the Covid pandemic, China's property slump and borrowing restrictions. A property sales worker told the BBC the company still tells prospective buyers there are 23,000 residents, while the real figure is closer to 5,000 — precisely the kind of vacancy and anonymity, analysts say, that made the development attractive to scam operations reportedly displaced from Cambodia's crackdown.
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