Red flags were reportedly raised early at multiple banks in Singapore before the city-state’s largest suspected investment fraud reached media headlines.
Several banks sounded the alarm before commodities trader Ng Yu Zhi was arrested in February this year, according to a «Bloomberg» report citing unnamed sources.
Ng faces a raft of charges related to a nickel-linked investment scheme which raised S$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion).
According to an interim report by judicial managers led by KPMG’s Bob Yap, Ng funneled around S$475 million from his companies – Envy Asset Management and Envy Global Asset Management – in part to fund a lavish lifestyle that involved S$2 million of monthly spending across private jet travels, butler services and more.
Early Flags
Amongst the banks that had flagged early concerns about Ng’s financial activities is OCBC which filed a suspicious transaction report (STR) as early as 2019 before closing his personal account in August 2020.
UOB closed Ng's corporate account a year before his arrest.
HSBC also filed STRs between 2019 and 2020 for Ng’s personal account before it was frozen by police.
Maintained Relationships
Elsewhere, other banks maintained relationships with Ng even at the time of his arrest including DBS and CIMB.
In the case of DBS, the bank had filed an STR to Singapore’s police and was in the process of closing his account before the arrest.
Ng allegedly misappropriated at least S$201 million from Envy Global Trading’s account at DBS, the report added citing charge sheets.
