SINGAPORE: A man who was behind a multi-million dollar wine investment scheme was on , Thursday ( Aug 8 ) charged for cheating and related offences.
Eldric Ko,  , the former CEO of Premium Liquid Assets ( PLASG), had allegedly conspired with another to misappropriate more than , S$ 12 million ( US$ 9 million ) from the company’s bank account, police said.
WINE INVESTMENT SCHEME
Between February 2007 and June 2011, PLASG had offered to sell buyers” En Primeur” beverage, or wine that had yet to be bottled.
Traders would have to wait a few years before bottling the liquor under this program.
Thereafter,  , PLASG would keep the wines on the traders ‘ behalf in an international inventory for a number of years.
Ko reportedly conspired with another person, Koo Han Jet, to “deceive traders into believing that PLASG may transfer ownership of the vineyards to the investors”, authorities said.
According to the police, they had defrauded the traders by transferring funds to PLASG.
Ko reportedly conspired with Koo to fraudulently steal$ 12,710,310 from the cash PLASG’s lender account, according to police. The money was transferred to a foreign bank account maintained by Grand Millesimes Limited ( GML) for processing.
According to the authorities, Ko later transferred the funds from GML’s international bank accounts to two Singaporean bank accounts.
He left Singapore in May 2011 just before the policeman began their investigation into the wine investment plan at PLASG, but he was later detained in May 2024 when he returned.
He was arraigned on May 25 in jury for allegedly frauding in connection with the wine-investment program, and he was later convicted of more offenses on Thursday.
Ko faces 15 expenses in full.
Eight matters of conspiring to steal include Ko’s dishonest inflating investors to move funds to PLASG.
Additionally, he faces three works of conspiring to defraud a public and defrauding by transferring money to a foreign bank accounts.
The man is accused of transferring misused funds up to his two Singapore bank accounts on four counts.
Court proceedings for this problem are continuing, police said.
Those found guilty of cheating and a breach of trust in a criminal offense does receive a maximum sentence of 10 and/or a fine for each offense.
In addition, those found guilty of benefiting from their own legal behavior face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of no exceeding S$ 500,000.
A person who has been found guilty of an incorporated charge is answerable for two times the abuse he would have been guilty for one event of the offence.