Jeffrey Ong Su Aun, a Singaporean lawyer allegedly linked to more than $33 million in missing funds, was arrested by Malaysian police in a hotel in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Cheras in the middle of last week.
Malaysian police released him to Singapore police officers in Kuala Lumpur the next day, on May 30, and he was taken back to the Republic.
He was charged with one count of cheating last Saturday in a Singapore district court.
Ong, 41, who was managing partner of law firm JLC Advisors, is in remand, and will be back in court on Thursday.
Malaysian police said the arrest was made following a request from Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).
"We received a request from CAD Singapore to assist with the arrest," Datuk Saiful Azly Kamaruddin, acting director of the Commercial Crime Investigation Department at the Royal Malaysia Police, told The Straits Times.
The Malaysian police were given the warrant of arrest by Singapore on May 28. The next morning, the warrant was endorsed by the Malaysian court.
"We tracked his location based on intelligence sharing between Malaysia and Singapore," said Mr Saiful, adding that police found his precise location within a day. Mr Saiful declined to reveal how Ong was tracked, citing "trade secrets".
The suspect was found alone in his room in the Cheras hotel, about half an hour by car from downtown Kuala Lumpur.
On Feb 19, Ong allegedly deceived CCJ Investments into believing that Suite Development had entered into a loan agreement with it.
He is then said to have dishonestly induced CCJ Investments to disburse a sum of $6 million.
Court documents said some $3.3 million was then used to refinance Suite Development's mortgage loan, and about $2.7 million was deposited into JLC Advisors' client's account.
A search on Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) website revealed that Suite Development is a real estate developer that was registered on Sept 16, 2010. There was no information on CCJ Investments on the Acra portal.
Court documents did not reveal how or if CCJ Investments and Suite Development were linked to Allied Technologies, a client of JLC Advisors.
More than $33 million had been held in escrow by JLC Advisors for Allied Technologies, and the funds went missing last month. Ong later became uncontactable.
