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The commission, despite being empowered to penalise and imprison such fraudsters, has allowed evaly’s monstrous rise instead. The competition watchdog’s unforgiving failure to intervene has dared evaly to grow and prompted others to follow suit.

Authorities now scramble to cover up their spectacular failure to act and protect the deceived customers of the e-commerce syndicate. A populist idea of raising an e-commerce-specific regulator is also gaining momentum. It will merely add another point of failure in the already disoriented club of regulators.

The government should identify where, when and why the incumbent regulatory gatekeepers have collectively failed to contain the fraudsters’ lust. But recovering and refunding the customers’ money should be the government’s topmost priority.

The author is senior policy fellow at LIRNEasia.