Ex-director and founder of Agritrade International charged with cheating investment platform
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An Interpol Red Notice was issued against Ng Say Pek after he left Singapore shortly before investigations began in 2020.
ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
- Ng Say Pek, ex-director of AIPL, faces 10 cheating charges for allegedly deceiving Funding Societies with $8 million in fictitious invoices.
- Ng fled Singapore in 2020 as investigations started but was deported from China and arrested in Singapore on December 1, 2025.
- AIPL's former CFO, Lim Beng Kim, was previously jailed for 20 years in 2023 for cheating and falsifying accounts related to the fraud.
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SINGAPORE - The founder and former director of Agritrade International, Ng Say Pek, was on Dec 2 charged in court with 10 counts of cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code Chapter 224.
The 72-year-old was accused of cheating digital financing platform Funding Societies, which was said to have entered into a credit facility arrangement with Agritrade.
The platform had been shown finance invoices that were allegedly assigned to Agritrade, the police said in a statement.
However, the invoices were later discovered to be fictitious. Funding Societies had thus been deceived into disbursing a total of $8 million over 10 transactions to Agritrade between August and November 2019.
The Commercial Affairs Department in January 2020 began investigations into Ng and other individuals for trade financing fraud.
Multiple reports were received by the police between January and August 2020, lodged by different entities, including banks and finance companies which had extended credit facilities to Agritrade for the purposes of trade financing.
Some of these financial institutions included major banks from Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan, which incurred losses between January 2017 and November 2019, according to a news report in 2022.
Ng left Singapore shortly before police investigations began. A warrant of arrest and an Interpol Red Notice were subsequently issued against him.
With the cooperation and assistance of China’s Ministry of Public Security, he was deported back to Singapore after being on the run for more than five years.
Ng was arrested upon his arrival in Singapore on Dec 1, 2025.
The offence of cheating carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years and a fine.
Ng is the second person from the Singapore-incorporated company to be charged.
On Dec 9, 2022, Agritrade’s former chief financial officer Lim Beng Kim was convicted of 11 counts of cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code, and one count of falsification of accounts under Section 477A of the code. She was sentenced to 20 years’ jail on Jan 17, 2023.
