Authorities draw links to car leasing companies in Singapore as US money laundering probe widens

He is also the owner and sole shareholder of SRS Auto, which engages in private car rental and motor financing.

In 2022, SRS Auto was mired in controversy when it made a voluntary cash offer to privatise precision engineering company Allied Technologies. 

Mr Tan was sanctioned by the Securities Industry Council (SIC) in January 2024, after he was found to be complicit in two breaches of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers. 

As a result, Mr Tan was denied the facility to purchase and sell shares through Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited without the consent of SIC for a period of 18 months from January 2024. 

He was also declared to be unfit to serve as a director of any Singapore listed company for a period of three years from the announcement. 

Mr Tan allegedly had a close relationship with Chen.

A company document seen by The Straits Times indicated that SRS Auto had a charge that still remains in its register from Skyline Investment Management – a firm set up by Chen that has also been sanctioned by the US Treasury. 

At the time, Skyline was known as TS-Wheelers.

The document showed that SRS Auto had taken an unspecified loan from Skyline Investment Management sometime in May 2017 for an undisclosed sum. 

Bloomberg reported that according to the loan agreement, SRS held accounts with United Overseas Bank and the Singapore arm of Malayan Banking. A spokesman for UOB Bank declined comment when contacted by Blomberg.

ST has also found links between Chen and a Singaporean woman who shares the same residential address as Mr Tan. Like Mr Tan, she is involved in the car leasing business as well.

Ms Chen Xiaoxuan, 25, is listed as a director in several firms, including Cars and Coffee Leasing and Supreme Cars Financial Services, both of which were incorporated in 2021. 

ST learnt that she incorporated another car rental firm, Rolls Platforms, in August 2025.

In 2022, Ms Chen Xiaoxuan set up 2KJB Pte Ltd, just seven months before it purchased a commercial building in Jalan Kilang Barat bearing the name of the firm.

A copy of the land title deed seen by ST found that the commercial building was purchased in December 2022. 

ESR-LOGOS REIT, which held the property title deed at that point, was reported to have divested the property for $35.3 million in November 2022. 

All four firms registered to Ms Chen Xiaoxuan share the same Jalan Kilang Barat address. 

The commercial building had earlier been identified in the US probe as the Singapore address for 11 companies directly linked to Chen and three companies linked to another a Chen Xiuling, or Karen Chen, who is also sanctioned in the US probe.

Officers from SPF had moved in against Chen and his associates, mounting

that saw more than $150 million in assets, including luxury vehicles and a yacht, being seized or frozen. 

Following the sanctions in the US and UK, Prince Group issued a statement on Nov 11 rejecting the notion that the firm or its chairman Chen is involved in any unlawful activity. 

The statement said the ongoing allegations against the groups are “baseless” and appear to be aimed at justifying the seizure of assets worth billions of dollars. 

In total, the US Treasury sanctioned 146 entities including Hong Kong-listed Khoon Group.

The group was

, an electrical works company that provides electrical installation and related services as a subcontractor. 

ST had reported that Chen is the controlling shareholder of Khoon Group and all its subsidiaries, through acquiring 55 per cent of the shares in the Group by January 2023.

A week after the report, Khoon Group

Mr Ang Kok Kwang and board chairman Mr Ang Jui Khoon.