5 men charged over alleged involvement in bogus investment schemes that duped 47
Source: The Straits Times
Author: Andrew Wong
SINGAPORE - Five men said to have been involved in bogus investment schemes promising quick returns were charged between April 12 and 15.
The police said on April 15 that Muhammad Muniruddin Mohamed Khairuddin, 38, Osman Japar, 52, and Muhammad Nabil Fatin Osman, 29, allegedly formed part of a team that duped 47 people into investing in these fraudulent schemes between Oct 15, 2018 and Feb 26, 2019.
They are also said to have been involved in offering the fake investment schemes to four more people between Nov 27, 2018 and Jan 17, 2019.
Muniruddin, sole director of Bill's Finanze Corporation (BFC) and former shareholder in Smartfunding (SF), faces two charges for his involvement in the fraudulent schemes for consenting to BFC making offers of securities without the required prospectus.
Osman, the chief trader of BFC and shareholder of SF at the time of the offences, faces five charges for his role in the schemes while Nabil, then the chief executive officer of BFC, faces four.
A check on the business registry showed both Osman and Nabil are no longer associated with any companies.
The last two men, Osman Mohamed Zin, 61, and Muhammed Nasir Salamun, 59, were both charged with failure to use reasonable diligence in the discharge of their duties.
Osman Mohamed Zin had served as BFC's director from Nov 17, 2017 to Mar 11, 2019. Nasir had served as director of the firm from Nov 7, 2018 to May 7, 2019.
The police said on April 15 that between March 2018 and May 2019, BFC had purportedly offered two investment schemes in local small and medium-sized enterprises.
BFC promised investors returns of 45 per cent for investments over six months, and 104 per cent for investments over a 12-month period.
The police said that BFC allegedly used the investments to repay the investment and promised returns of earlier investors, as well as to fund trading activities on FXPrimus, an overseas online trading platform.
"BFC is also suspected of failing to lodge or register any prospectus with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and making the offers of the two investment schemes to the investors without the requisite prospectus," it added.
Between May and September 2019, some of the men had used another company, Smartfunding (SF), to offer a scheme that would allow investors to invest in two local firms.
But the money raised from investors was allegedly misappropriated, the police added.
Osman purportedly misappropriated $367,973 meant for investments into two companies sometime in May 2019, and then misappropriated another $804,464 in June 2019.