From the ST archives: Fugitive ex-Citiraya boss fled with US$51m; A-G goes after missing millions

This article was first published in The Straits print edition on Aug 15, 2008.

Three years after Ng Teck Lee fled the country with money he pocketed while running waste recycling company Citiraya, it has now surfaced just how much he amassed and how he did it.

In all, investigators believe he skipped town with US$51 million (S$72 million), made from selling used computer chips which the recycler should have destroyed.

This makes the fraud one of Singapore’s biggest ever corporate scandals.

The Attorney-General is now trying to forfeit about $28 million worth of assets here – shares, bank accounts, insurance policies and proceeds from the sale of three houses – all traced to Ng’s ill-gotten gains.

Trying to block the Attorney-General’s attempts are former creditors of Citiraya and a relative of Ng’s, according to court documents filed.

Ng amassed the US$51 million over two years. With the help of his brother Teck Boon, he swiped some 62 containers of electronic scrap between 2003 and 2004 and had them shipped to buyers in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

He placed the profits into two Hong Kong accounts and used them to buy shares, property and make other purchases.

It all ended in January 2005, when Taiwan police raided the premises of some firms there which bought the goods from Ng.

The authorities there were apparently alerted when scrap chips that belonged to one of Citiraya’s US-based clients surfaced in Taiwan when the items should have been crushed and recycled in Singapore.

Ng fled Singapore the same month. He is currently on Interpol’s wanted list while his brother Teck Boon, who was Citiraya’s former assistant general manager, is currently serving an eight-year jail term after being convicted in 2005 for his part in the scam.

In going after Ng’s assets, the Attorney-General is applying to the High Court to seize his ill-gotten gains under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act.

It is believed that this is the first time the Act is being invoked for a case not linked to drugs or corruption offences. But the intent is similar – to prevent Ng from getting his hands on assets purchased with money made from illegal acts, like in the case of a heroin trafficker’s drug money.

The Attorney-General will come up against Citiraya’s former judicial managers Ernst & Young, who are fighting the claim on behalf of the firm’s creditors. They maintain that the money should go to them as the chips were originally owned by the firm.

Represented by lawyers from Allen & Gledhill, they add that Ng failed in his duties as CEO by committing fraud against the firm.

Among the assets being fought over are three bank accounts and 11 life insurance policies owned by Ng’s wife Thor Chwee Hwa, valued at some $1.19 million.

Ng is also understood to have transferred some $4.25 million from a Hong Kong account to his wife, a homemaker, in 2003.

The present whereabouts of Madam Thor are not known and she is believed to have left the country sometime after Ng fled.

The couple were also joint owners of two houses in Binjai Park and Paya Lebar Crescent valued at $15.6 million.

Resisting the Attorney-General’s move to seize Madam Thor’s 60 per cent share of a second Paya Lebar Crescent house is her brother Thor Beng Huat.

Through lawyer Kertar Singh, the businessman argues that he has a 40 per cent stake in the property and has paid the mortgage instalments for the past three years. His mother and other siblings are presently living in the Paya Lebar unit, which is the family home.

Pre-trial hearings have been ongoing in the High Court and the next session is due early next month.