An account from an individual who got burnt by another Chinese con-job, China Paper.
I remember once being in the presence of a former top remisier cum trader who lost heavily in the debacle of Clob meltdown. He was into margin trading, easily holding millions of dollars of Clob shares that turned into "nothing" and resulted in his big debts. Then he had to slog into many jobs to make ends meet. There was another top player whom I met driving a taxi and he recalled this period with much lamentations and sighs. He too lost everything. There were easily many stories of that generation of stock players as Clob shares dominated the stock market back then. There was no way not to play Singapore stock market if you do not engage in Clob shares.
The Clob fiasco was a result of Singapore government insisting that the local exchange had a right and it was safe to trade in Malaysian shares in Singapore system. Back in the nineties and eighties, Clob shares was the rage. It was a period of ruin for many who lost almost "everything" when the Malaysian government decided to "screw" the Singaporean investors and traders as it made the decision that all stock trading in their counters outside Malaysia is illegal. The Malaysian government did it when it realised that the Singapore government was not going to help in bailout funds with "no strings attached'. So it had its revenge by undertaking this action on Clob shares and Singapore stock investors in Clob shares were "forced" to sell them at a pittance to a holding company who scooped it all up at a very huge discount to resell them in Malaysia and this holding company was linked to the very top in Malaysian government - Dr Mahathir and his kaki, the finance minister dude, Daim. We were thoroughly screwed by these fellows.