SINGAPORE – The wife of a tycoon has been handed a jail sentence after the Singaporean couple evaded capture for nearly 20 years over his alleged involvement in an embezzlement case linked to more than US$51 million.
On May 8, Thor Chwee Hwa, 57, was sentenced to a year and 10 months’ jail after she admitted to opening a bank account used to receive ill-gotten gains totalling more than US$1.1 million (over $2 million according to court documents).
The case involving her husband, Ng Teck Lee, 59, is still pending.
In 2024, he was charged with misappropriating electronic scrap weighing more than 6,700kg.
He allegedly misappropriated uncrushed computer chips between April 2003 and November 2004 and sold them, receiving more than US$51 million, equivalent to around $72 million at the time.
The prosecution said this was “a staggering amount” and resulted in the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau’s largest seizure of assets against a single individual.
Ng was the president and chief executive of Citiraya Industries at the time of his alleged offences.
Court documents stated that the company was in the business of recycling electronic waste on behalf of computer chip manufacturers, including AMD, Infineon, ST Microelectronics and Intel.
The manufacturers would send uncrushed or partially crushed chips to Citiraya, which would then process the chips to recover the precious metals used in their manufacture.
With the assistance of Gan Chin Chin, who was Citiraya’s chief financial officer at the time, Ng used various intermediaries, including shell companies such as Pan Asset International, “to sell the uncrushed computer chips to overseas syndicates for repackaging and sale as standard products”, according to deputy public prosecutors Hon Yi, Shaun Lim and Emily Zhao.
Under Ng’s alleged instructions, Gan purportedly credited these sale proceeds of more than US$51 million to four bank accounts.
Court documents did not disclose whether Gan has been charged or dealt with by the authorities.
