minsta

Singaporean businessman Ng Yu Zhi to face trial over $1.1 billion nickel scam

Pabio November 26, 2024

Former accountant accused of managing $1 billion nickel scam who shook Singapore’s business world is on trial Tuesday on more than 100 charges related to fraud and money laundering.

Prosecutors say Ng Yu Zhi, 37, raised money for transactions that didn’t exist. Hundreds of clients, many of them high-profile figures in the city-state, invested their money in a $1.1 billion scheme linked to Ng’s Envy Group, which offered investments in the nickel trade and touted impressive average quarterly gains of 15 percent.

Ng, meanwhile, spent millions to finance an extravagant lifestyle, including a three-story villa in an upscale neighborhood and a multimillion-dollar Pagani sports car.

Singapore Police called the scam, carried out between 2020 and 2021, one of the largest investment frauds ever recorded in the country. It is also the latest in a series of scandals in the financial and commodities trading hub, which is now seeking to restore its reputation for good governance.

Earlier this month, the former oil tycoon Lim Oon Kuin82, was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for deceiving HSBC Holdings Plc and inciting counterfeiting. In October, S Iswaran became the first former minister to be jailed in almost half a century, after pleading guilty to charges including obstruction of justice.

The law firms representing Ng are Legal Eagles, Nicholas & Tan Partnership LLP, Nine Yards Chambers LLC, R. Ramason & Almenoar. The judge who will preside over the hearing will be Christopher Tan.