As I think what if a project will be succeed and earn much profits? Then the developer don't need to disappear with money we invested. Of they do such, It's actually like killing the chicken which gives golden eggs daily. In this case we must study their strategies by referring social media , wp and everything related to them - without suspecting their concepts in the first place.
At first you will really going to think bad about their planned or concept about their risk free investments which is some people really avoiding that kind of things. But it really depends on the project.