Jail for ex-sales agent linked to multi-million-dollar gold investment scam
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SINGAPORE – A former sales agent of gold investment firm Genneva
While Zhang Jinxia, 58, was not convicted of offences directly related to the scam, District Judge Shawn Ho had earlier found her guilty on March 6 of cheating a pawnshop by falsely reporting the loss of pawn tickets.
She was also convicted of one count of dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct.
The Singaporean woman intends to appeal against her conviction and sentence, and her bail was set at $45,000 on March 13.
In a statement, the police said the Singapore-registered investment firm had sold gold bars under a buyback scheme between 2008 and 2012.
Under the scheme, it sold the precious metal to customers and promised returns of up to 36 per cent on their investments over a contract period.
The customers were later told to deposit the gold bars with the company for “inspection purposes” and were promised an equivalent quantity of gold after three working days.
Genneva is believed to have collected around 3,500kg of gold from the customers, but the police did not disclose how many people were affected.
In earlier proceedings, the court heard that the now-defunct firm started defaulting on the return of the gold bars and eventually racked up more than $40 million in losses for customers who had participated in the “gold inspection” exercise.
Genneva was not in a position to return the gold within the stipulated timeframe as it was facing financial difficulties.
According to the police statement, the company’s purchasing head, identified as Choo Chee Loong, was tasked to pawn the gold bars collected from customers under the “gold inspection scheme”.
The police said: “Due to limits on the weight of gold that a person could pawn, Zhang agreed to help Choo to pawn 3kg of gold by falsely stating her name on the pawn tickets as the pawner.
“(She then handed) over the loans totalling $168,000 received for the pawned gold, as well as three pawn tickets, to Choo on Aug 24, 2012.”
On Sept 29 that year, Zhang lied to the pawnshop, claiming that the pawn tickets had gone missing. The pawnshop then gave her a declaration form to sign and declare the purported losses.
That same day, Zhang also affirmed the declaration form before a Commissioner for Oaths.
The police said she submitted the declaration form to one of the pawnshop’s employees on Oct 1, 2012.
The employee then delivered the 3kg of gold to her, which she later pawned at another pawnshop for a cash loan of $168,000.
The police did not disclose what happened next, but officers later seized the 3kg of gold.
Several others linked to the ruse were dealt in court earlier.
One of them, Genneva’s former general manager Kwok Fong Loong, was sentenced to four years and eight months’ jail in 2020.
Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times’ court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts.
