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On 2 December 2025, a 72-year-old Singapore Citizen, Ng Say Pek (“Ng”), former founder and director of Agritrade International Pte Ltd (“AIPL”), was charged in court with 10 counts of cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code (“PC”) Chapter 224. 

Ng is accused of allegedly cheating Funding Societies Pte Ltd (“Funding Societies”), a digital financing platform. Funding Societies purportedly entered into a credit facility arrangement with AIPL after being shown finance invoices that were allegedly assigned to AIPL. These finance invoices were later discovered to be fictitious, which resulted in Funding Societies being deceived into disbursing a total of $8 million over 10 transactions to AIPL between August and November 2019. 

Background

In January 2020, the Commercial Affairs Department (“CAD”) commenced investigations into Ng and other individuals for trade financing fraud. The investigations centred on AIPL, a Singapore-incorporated company that engaged in trading of coal and palm oil. Between January and August 2020, the Police received multiple reports lodged by various entities, including banks and finance companies that had extended credit facilities to AIPL for the purposes of trade financing. 

Ng left Singapore shortly before the commencement of Police investigations. A warrant of arrest and an INTERPOL Red Notice¹ were subsequently issued against him. With the cooperation and assistance of the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China, Ng was deported back to Singapore after being on the run for more than five years and was arrested upon his arrival in Singapore on 1 December 2025. 

Ng is the second person from AIPL to be charged. On 9 December 2022, Lim Beng Kim, Lulu, former Chief Financial Officer of AIPL was convicted of 11 counts of cheating under Section 420 of the PC and one count of falsification of accounts under Section 477A of the PC. She was sentenced to an imprisonment term of 20 years on 17 January 2023. 

The offence of cheating carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years and a fine.

Director CAD, Mr David Chew said, “The Police will spare no effort, working within the ambit of our laws, to bring criminals hiding overseas to face justice in Singapore. To this end, we work closely with INTERPOL and our foreign counterparts to detect and deport such fugitives. We appreciate the strong support and assistance rendered by the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China for the return of Ng Say Pek to Singapore to face charges in relation to one of Singapore’s largest cases of trade financing fraud.”
 
[1]: An INTERPOL Red Notice is a request by a member country to locate and provisionally arrest a person based on an arrest warrant issued by the member country.