PUBLISHED ONJuly 08, 2026 12:10 PMBYSean LerThe long arm of law caught up on Wednesday (July 8) with three men and a woman, aged between 60 and 63, as they were charged for their alleged involvement in a multi-national trade-based money laundering scheme involving gold smuggling.
In a news release after the four were charged, the police said its Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) first uncovered the "elaborate scheme" after receiving information on a possible value added tax (VAT) carousel fraud in November 2020.
"As the information disclosed possible trade-based money laundering activities, the CAD conducted extensive probes into the activities of the syndicate through close collaboration with Singapore Customs and Chinese law enforcement counterparts," the police added.
Three Singapore-registered corporate entities — Macropac Systems, Megaspeed Services, and Seg Metallic Electronics Trading — were found to have imported signal converters from two suppliers operated by a criminal syndicate in China.
Police said preliminary investigations revealed that the syndicate had arranged for gold to be hidden within the signal converters.
The converters were then declared to China Customs as high-tech products and exported to the Singapore entities at inflated prices.
Upon arrival in Singapore, the signal converters were dismantled and the gold extracted and sold, while the mainboards were exported back to China via Hong Kong companies for reassembly into the next batch.
This facilitated the transfer of fraudulently obtained VAT refunds to the Hong Kong-based mastermind through payments for these mainboards.
Through this carousel-like arrangement, the criminal syndicate created a paper trail of sham transactions disguised as legitimate trades.
According to the police, Chinese authorities were defrauded of substantial export VAT refunds.
CAD's director Peggy Pao said in a statement that Singapore, as an international hub for trade, transport and finance, will remain vigilant against syndicates that seek to operate fraudulent businesses or launder their proceeds through the city-state.
Here are some details of the charges faced by the four suspects:
| Name of accused person | Age/Gender | Alleged offences |
| Seow Choon Pheng | 63, Male |
|
| Seow Choon Lien | 62, Male | |
| Chu Tung Wu | 60, Male |
|
| Tan Kui Moi | 60, Female |
|
VAT carousel fraud, also known as missing trader intra-community fraud (MTIC), is a sophisticated tax scam involving at least three companies that resell goods or services to each other with the intention of reclaiming VAT without paying it to tax authorities.
This means that at least one company in a VAT carousel charges its customer VAT, without declaring it to the tax authority.
At the same time, it claims a VAT refund when reselling the goods. In so doing, the mala fide company keeps the VAT received, thus defrauding the taxman.
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