SINGAPORE – Two former directors of a firm linked to a Ponzi scheme were found guilty on Thursday of carrying on a fraudulent business, an offence under the Companies Act.
At the time of the offences, Singaporean Iseli Rudolf James Maitland, 63, and Malaysian How Soo Feng, 48, were directors of The Gold Label (TGL) which sold gold to more than 2,000 customers under a “buyback” arrangement, bringing in revenue totalling more than $120 million.
TGL has since wound up.
In January this year, the third former director Wong Kwan Sing, then 50, was sentenced to two years and 10 months’ jail after pleading guilty to an offence under the Companies Act.
The court heard that Maitland and How were directors and shareholders of TGL from July 7, 2009, to Nov 15, 2010.
In their submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutors Kevin Yong, Edwin Soh, Grace Teo and Ong Xin Jie said that the firm had no investment activities and relied on sales of new contracts under the buyback scheme to repay its obligations under the older contracts.
The cycle continued until TGL was unable to sell new contracts and the business broke down.
Its payout and buyback obligations to clients came up to over $85 million, while the company had just over $450,000 in its bank accounts as of Oct 7, 2010.
The prosecutors told District Judge Ng Peng Hong that Maitland and How had profited handsomely from the fraudulent gold buyback business.
More than $1.2 million in directors’ fees had been paid between July 2009 and…
