On 7 January 2025, a 42-year-old man, Ong Kai Min (“Ong”), was charged in court with:
- 23 counts of cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code (“PC”), of which, 19 charges are amalgamated charges under Section 124(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code (“CPC”); and
- one count of intentionally obstructing the course of justice under Section 204A of the PC.
Ong was the director of Singapore Index Trading Institute Pte. Ltd. (“SITI”), Bookhero Pte. Ltd. (“Bookhero”), OKM Holdings Pte. Ltd. (“OKMH”) and C7 Traders Vanuatu Limited (“C7”). C7 was a Vanuatu registered entity that purportedly operated an offshore brokerage named C7 Traders. Between May 2019 and March 2021, SITI offered artificial intelligence (“AI”) trading schemes where SITI’s AI purportedly conducted trades into financial instruments (including leveraged foreign exchange and indices) on investors’ behalf on the C7 Traders platform. The cheating charges allege that Ong had dishonestly induced investors into transferring over USD500,000 and SGD3.9 million to SITI and/or Bookhero by deceiving them that their monies would thereafter be transferred to C7 for trading purposes.
Ong is also alleged to have obstructed the course of justice by instructing an employee to delete records, including emails and documents, and to reformat computers belonging to SITI, OKMH and C7 in early March 2021, shortly before investors received news of C7’s abrupt closure and default.
Those found guilty of cheating under Section 420 of the PC face a fine and/or a jail term not exceeding 10 years. A person convicted of an amalgamated charge read with Section 124(8)(a)(ii) of the CPC is liable to two times the amount of punishment to which that person would otherwise have been liable for one incident of the offence.
Any person convicted for obstructing the course of justice under Section 204A of the PC will face a fine and/or a jail term not exceeding seven years.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
07 January 2025 @ 11:15 AM