The first and the most colourful theory says the crash was an ambush by enemies, of which Fun Gor has no shortage. There are the TV starlets who lost their shirts on his investment tips, his fellow traders whose sweethearts had made the wrong punt, and regulatory officials who were forced into a corner to conduct an industry-wide crackdown because of his recklessness. Even Webb himself had his 2.3 per cent investment wiped out by a major rights issue.

The second and more tantalising theory says that the regulators want Fun Gor’s fingers burnt, because he’d been way too arrogant in his recklessness.

His stocks kept breaking price records, to the extent that an umbrella maker with a 2015 net income of HK25 million could have a market capitalisation of close to HK$50 billion. His boys didn’t so much fight the regulators with the best lawyers, as simply shutting their doors, or making a prolonged stay on the mainland.

However, given Fun Gor’s tight control on the stocks, and therefore the lack of available shares for dumping, he and his party were shielded from the ambush.

That brings us to the third theory: Fun Gor orchestrated, or at least contributed to, the crash by dumping the stocks himself. Cash is king when the tide is changing.

The changing tide has mainly to do with his source of funding - pyramid schemes linked to penny stocks in Hong Kong that were sold to mainland Chinese investors.

This is just one among many similar Ponzi schemes. The money raised was spent in supporting the share price, bringing in more victims.

Everyone was having a good time until local regulators tightened their grip on new issuers and mainland regulators were alerted to the scams.

The Ponzi scheme no longer works, and a crash was a mere matter of time.

For Fun Gor, the exit price was not great, but it didn’t hurt either. After all, the stock plummeted 90 per cent, after having rallied 15 to 20 times.

He didn’t lose his grip on the Enigma Network, and neither was there any sign of a panic sale nor a margin call. The shares of most Enigma members deposited in the central securities clearing system hasn’t increased, reflecting there’d been no change in the shares pledged. The top 40 holdings of his securities firms remain unchanged, except for two.

So far the only losers out of this game, who’re left feeling the pain and anger, are the mainland Chinese victims of his Ponzi scheme. And their regulators.

The problem is the spiral has already been started. When the regulators act, there’s only one direction for penny stocks to go.