2024 wrapped: The biggest crime stories of the year, and what’s next for these cases

SINGAPORE - High-profile corruption hearings, including one involving a former Cabinet minister and his billionaire friend, a surge in murder cases and record sums lost to scammers. These were among the stories that hogged the headlines in 2024.

1. Corruption cases

Singapore’s graft busters, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), had a number of major cases.

They included one involving S. Iswaran, who was handed

a 12-month jail term

on Oct 3 after pleading guilty to obtaining valuable items as a public servant.

The former transport minister’s case is tied to that of property developer

Ong Beng Seng

, the chairman of Formula One (F1) race promoter Singapore GP.

Ong was

charged on Oct 4

with abetting a public servant in obtaining gifts and with abetting the obstruction of justice.

Section 165

makes it an offence for a public servant to accept or obtain anything of value, for free or for inadequate payment, from anyone with whom he is involved in an official capacity.

Iswaran was the first to be prosecuted under Section 165 of the Penal Code in post-independent Singapore.

In December, CPIB announced

the arrest of a rogue Singaporean tycoon and his wife

who ran from the law 19 years ago over embezzlement allegations.

Ng Teck Lee

, 58, was the chief executive and president of then listed recycling company Citiraya Industries, which was in the business of recycling and recovering precious metals from electronic scrap, such as used computer chips. Its clients included semiconductor giants like AMD, Intel and Infineon.

Instead of crushing items to recover precious metals from the scrap, Ng allegedly sent the products overseas to be sold.

He purportedly made more than US$51 million, which was worth around $72 million at the time, from his schemes.

Ng allegedly bribed several people in his scheme. For their roles in the crimes, 12 people were sentenced to between eight months and eight years in jail.

2. Financial crimes

The year saw a number of young people, with flashy cars and lifestyles, hauled to court over a range of offences, including money laundering and fraud.

In one such case, which brought about changes in Singapore’s anti-money laundering measures,

10 foreigners aged between 32 and 45 were convicted

.

The nine men and one woman, who were all originally from Fujian, China, were

arrested in August 2023

in the country’s largest money laundering probe that involved

$3 billion in cash and assets

.

They were sentenced to between 13 and 17 months’ jail on various charges relating to money laundering, fraud and forgery. They were deported and barred from re-entering Singapore after serving their jail terms.

The police’s Commercial Affairs Department and Criminal Investigation Department also went after 17 others linked to the same probe. The suspects had fled the country amid the investigations.

In November, the police announced that 15 of them had

surrendered about $1.85 billion in cash and assets

to the state.

Investigations into the two remaining fugitives are ongoing. Their assets worth about $144.9 million remain seized or the subject of prohibition of disposal orders.

Meanwhile, the police have taken to court the first Singaporean linked to the case.

Liew Yik Kit

, the former personal driver of fugitive Su Binghai, was charged with lying to the police and for obstructing the course of justice. He had allegedly lied to the police that Su did not leave any valuables in his possession when he allegedly had the businessman’s four luxury cars, including a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

The decadent lifestyle also tripped up

Thai fraudster Pansuk Siriwipa

. She faced 180 charges, including cheating, fraudulent trading and money laundering.

The 30-year-old had masterminded a scheme where she collected payments for luxury bags and watches amounting to more than $25 million. The orders were never fulfilled.

Instead, Pansuk spent the money on herself. Among other things, she bought a $2 million property in Bangkok and

gifted her husband a Chevrolet Corvette

. She also spent $58,000 to travel by private jet.

Pansuk and her Singaporean husband, Pi Jiapeng, 29, were

arrested at a budget hotel in Johor Bahru

in August 2022 after fleeing from Singapore to Malaysia in the container compartment of a lorry. 

She was

sentenced to 14 years’ jail

in October.

Businessman Ng Yu Zhi, who owned expensive art pieces and was once linked to a fleet of expensive cars worth millions, was in the High Court in November.

It was over allegations that he had

perpetrated a billion-dollar fraudulent nickel investment scheme

through his companies Envy Asset Management and Envy Global Trading.

Ng is alleged to have deceived investors, including lawyers and financiers, into putting in a total of $1.46 billion to finance the trading of physical nickel, when such deals never took place.

The 37-year-old

faces a total of 108 charges

for offences including cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust, money laundering and fraudulent trading.

The prosecution team said the businessman used the invested funds to finance his lavish lifestyle.

The year also saw a fall from grace for

tycoon Lim Oon Kuin

, better known as O.K. Lim. At his peak, the 82-year-old made the Forbes list of billionaires in 2014 with a net worth of US$1.8 billion.

Lim, who founded oil trading company Hin Leong, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020, admitted he had directed the firm to hide about US$800 million in futures trading losses.

He was

sentenced to 17 years and six months’ jail

on Nov 18 after being convicted of three charges of cheating and forgery.

3. Scam scourge in Singapore

Scam numbers hit record highs in the first half of 2024, with

more than $385.6 million lost

in 26,587 reported cases. Losses were 24.6 per cent higher than the $309.4 million recorded during the same period in 2023.

E-commerce scams, job scams and phishing scams were among the top scam types of concern in the first half of 2024.

Malware-enabled scams, a scourge in 2023, fell to just 95 cases in the first six months of 2024, down from 687 during the same period in 2023. 

The change in trends resulted in many victims transferring their money into scammers’ accounts of their own accord.

In 86 per cent of the cases, the scammers did not gain control of the victims’ bank accounts but had manipulated them into transferring money to the criminals.

4. Murders at a five-year high

The number of murder reports was at its highest in five years, with 10 cases reported in 2024.

According to the Singapore Department of Statistics, there were four murders in 2023, seven each in 2022 and 2021, and eight in 2020.

The latest case involved a Vietnamese woman, who was

killed in a knife attack in Hougang

on Dec 10. A 42-year-old Chinese national, who was arrested at the scene, has been charged in relation to the case. It was the third murder report in less than two weeks.

On Dec 2, the police

found the body of a 30-year-old woman

in a Housing Board flat in Dover. A man linked to her death is no longer in Singapore. The police are seeking assistance from overseas authorities to locate the man.

In another case, the police

arrested a 66-year-old man

for murder

on Nov 29, after discovering the remains of a 67-year-old woman in her Ang Mo Kio flat. The man was charged with murder on Nov 30.

Just a month earlier, they

arrested a 50-year-old man

who had allegedly killed a grassroots volunteer in broad daylight. Investigations suggested the two men knew each other.

Several people were attacked with weapons in public places in 2024.

In November, a man was arrested after

he used an improvised flamethrower

to try to hurt police officers. He allegedly lured them to Pasir Ris Park by claiming a woman was seen sitting on a ledge at the top of an observation tower in the area.

The man was charged with attempted murder.

On Nov 9, a man was arrested after

he cut a priest in the mouth at St Joseph’s Church

in Bukit Timah during mass. He was armed with five weapons.

The man, who was detained by churchgoers, was charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon.

Looking ahead

1. More court appearances

Ong Beng Seng’s next court date is on Jan 3, 2025. If the case goes to trial, prosecutors are expected to name his associates.

They were identified in the Iswaran case as people who facilitated the hotel and travel arrangements to and from Doha, Qatar – the trip that implicated the former Cabinet minister.

Meanwhile, Ng Teck Lee, who currently faces one charge of criminal breach of trust and another under the Prevention of Corruption Act, is expected in court in the new year with his wife Thor Chwee Hwa, 55.

Thor faces one charge under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act.

Ng Yu Zhi’s trial will also continue into the new year, while Pansuk Siriwipa’s husband Pi Jiapeng is expected in court in 2025.

Pi faces nine charges, including over possessing a luxury sports car believed to have been obtained using tainted funds, and for abetting Pansuk in moving $260,000 out of Singapore without declaring it to the authorities.

O.K. Lim will also be back in court as he appeals against his conviction and sentence. He is currently out on $4 million bail.

2. Tackling money laundering

Amid the high-profile money laundering cases, the Government introduced a slew of measures to combat the crime in Singapore.

They include the

Anti-Money Laundering and Other Matters Bill

, which was passed in Parliament in August. It gives the courts the power to order the sale of seized properties without the consent of involved parties.

Currently, if law enforcement agencies want to sell a seized property linked to suspected criminal activities, they are required to obtain the consent of all parties involved, including the suspect.

In addition, Parliament passed the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Amendment) and Other Matters Bill in November.

It will allow the authorities to take statements from people in Singapore to assist in investigating foreign crimes, even if criminal prosecutions have not started overseas.

In April, a centralised digital platform that enables banks to voluntarily share information with one another about suspicious customers was launched.

Called Cosmic, which stands for

Collaborative Sharing of Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing Information and Cases

, the platform aims to tackle three key financial crime risks in commercial banking.

These are the abuse of shell companies, the misuse of trade finance for illicit purposes and financing that supports the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

3. Acting against scammers

To continue the fight against scams, the

Protection from Scams Bill

was introduced in Parliament in November.

It proposes giving the police powers to control the bank accounts of stubborn scam victims, who insist they are not being scammed despite evidence showing they are.

If passed, the police will be allowed to issue restriction orders to banks, which will then limit the banking transactions of an individual’s accounts. Singapore is believed to be the first in the world to propose such a law.

The police have said that one of the biggest challenges they face is convincing people that they are victims of a scam.

However, the police currently cannot stop a victim from doing what he wants with his money, even if he is suspected of being scammed.