Ladies and gents, I still have to disagree with you.
Currently I am studying a MSc in Finance and this is why I advocate that investing should be as safe and as transparent as possible, and this should be guaranteed by the authorities.
I am not sure how this scheme was presented to the "investors", but assuming the scheme had at least some sort of credibility, so an office, a web-page, an app, this is enough to fool inexperienced investors to fall for the trap. 20% per month is obviously impossible. But "obvious" for who? For me and for you it is, but for someone with no exposure to investments it's not.
Saying that it's the investors' foul is similar to saying that the girl that got raped is responsible for it because she was wearing a skirt.
Women should not be afraid to walk in skirts and investors shouldn't be afraid to invest because "there are ponzies everywhere." This is one of reasons why you pay taxes, even if indirectly, since there is were no official taxes in the UAE up until recently. For example UK and US markets are well regulated and it's very unlikely you will lose your funds. As far as I know UAE has thinner regulations, so it attracts crooks like these and makes investing riskier. Btw I think its great the guy got 500 years. He should serve every single one of them.
I am not advocating that you shouldn't do any due diligence before you invest. But after a basic search you should be certain that it's extremely unlikely that you will lose your money in financial assets. When you buy a car, you don't just accept what you are presented, you do some due diligence. But you don't have to become an engineer to be able to buy a car that runs, do you? Same should apply to investments. Call/visit their office (they had one), check their licence (they had one), talk to an independent consultant (Here I have to admit that most people probably skipped this part) this should be enough! You don't have to become a professional investor to save for retirement.
To wrap this up, if the investor did the basic due diligence (basic I mean very basic, no knowledge of FX trading, etc) and then got ripped, its not the investors foul. And it pisses me off that crooks like these exist because they take away credibility from the entire financial system and prevent people from investing and increasing their wealth. And as I previously said, I disagree with the mentality of "you got ripped off, it's your foul". No it's not. This has nothing to do with victim's mentality. This is about the regulatory bodies doing their job right and preventing these schemes from damaging people's life and the countries' economies.