SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man was sentenced to five years and 10 months’ jail on Tuesday (Oct 14) for his role in a luxury goods reselling business that cheated dozens of customers of almost S$25 million (US$19.2 million).
Pi Jiapeng, 30, started the business with his Thai wife Pansuk Siriwipa, who was sentenced last year to 14 years’ jail.
He pleaded guilty to three charges of being a party to fraudulent trading, breaching his duties as a director and money laundering. Another four charges were taken into consideration.
The couple married in September 2020 and started a business called Tradenation, selling luxury watches in Singapore in May 2021. Pi was the sole director of this company.
They opened a second company called Tradeluxury around January 2022 to sell luxury bags. Pansuk was the main decision-maker for both companies.
Pi made withdrawals and transfers from Tradenation’s account on Pansuk’s instructions, liaising with customers on occasion and delivering the goods to customers.
He did not have any substantive involvement in Tradeluxury.
Both companies primarily operated on a pre-order basis, offering prices that were 10 to 20 per cent lower than local resellers by getting goods from cheaper overseas suppliers.
The products were offered for sale through Instagram, Carousell and Telegram.
Customers would make full payments before the companies procured and delivered the goods. They were offered the option of a full refund if pre-orders were not fulfilled.
From the end of 2021 to the start of 2022, Tradenation started facing sourcing difficulties due to shipment delays and other issues with the overseas suppliers.
Both companies began operating at a loss and had net liabilities of S$1.78 million by the end of February 2022.
Despite this, Tradenation continued to accept orders and collect payment. Pansuk did this because she needed the funds to purchase stock to fulfil the earlier orders.
In February 2022, Pi became aware that Tradenation was making some purchases of watches from local resellers instead of overseas suppliers. He knew this because he made the substantial bank transfers to the local resellers, and he was aware that this was likely to cause losses to Tradenation.
He also knew that the prices of watches should go up around Chinese New Year, but in February 2022, he observed that the prices of watches were dropping by a few thousand dollars daily. As a result, he knew that Tradenation would have to let go of watches it had bought in January 2022 at a loss.
