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Gone too soon. John Paul Juantas is survived by his wife Diana and five-year-old daughter Mariea Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: A nurse is blaming Exential that ran a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme out of Dubai for the death of her cancer stricken brother.

John Paul Juanatas died Sunday morning in his hometown in Pampanga in the Philippines aged 31 after battling a rare form of the killer disease for over two years.

However, his sister Joanne, who came to work in Dubai on her brother’s invitation in 2010, claims she lost her sibling because her family couldn’t pay for his expensive treatment after all their lifesavings ended up in Extential accounts. “There is nothing worse than to see a dear member of the family die because of lack of care. We could have done so much for him if only we hadn’t fallen for the scam and lost all our money,” Joanne told XPRESS hours before boarding a flight back to her native to attend her brother’s last rites.

Securing finances

Eldest of four siblings, John Paul worked as an architect for a decade in the emirate. He was diagnosed with NasoPharyngeal Carcinoma in 2014 which is when he also invested in Exential. “Johan was desperate to secure his finances because he wasn’t sure how the next few years were going to be for him and when he found out about Exential that promised great returns, he jumped to it,” said Joanne who forked out $75,000 (Dh278,000) for three accounts with the dodgy firm - two of which are in her mother’s name. John Paul, who is survived by his wife Diana, 29, and five-year-old daughter Mariea, is believed to have had five accounts of $25,000 each.

“I am not sure if they had more (number of accounts) but I know that like me he too put all his life savings and even took a bank loan to pay Exential. At first it was like a blessing because they kept getting a fair return every month that would pay for his initial treatment. So much so that they even decided to briefly move back to the Philippines to continue the treatment, but once the money stopped coming, everything went into disarray,” added Joanne who makes Dh7,000 per month.

She says her brother’s last chemotherapy session – which cost the family roughly Dh10,000 each time - was in February 2016. They returned to Dubai barely three months after Exential’s payouts froze.

“Without a job and no money for the treatment, the two were forced to sell all their belongings to meet their daily expenses and medicine, let alone the treatment for cancer.”

“Yet they decided to stay on in Dubai hoping that Exential would return their dues, but as luck would have it, John had to be hospitalised after he developed severe body pain. By then he was so weak that he could barely walk. Later it emerged the cancer had advanced to stage four. Sadly he could never come out of that hospital bed,” said Joanne, who claims to have even written to Exential owner S.L. asking for refunds.

Earnest appeal

“I told him that my brother was running out of time. What he did has devastated many families including ours,” she said. “Such get-rich-quick schemes can land people in the worst of all situations and I wish we all had the sense then to see it. All my brother wanted was to live just a few more days. Thinking about his suffering breaks my heart every time and more so when we could do nothing for him, only to see him die,” added Joanna.

 

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