SINGAPORE: A man who was behind a multi-million dollar wine investment scheme was on Thursday (Aug 8) charged for cheating and related offences.
Eldric Ko, the former CEO of Premium Liquid Assets (PLASG), had allegedly conspired with another to misappropriate more than S$12 million (US$9 million) from the company’s bank account, police said.
WINE INVESTMENT SCHEME
Between February 2007 and June 2011, PLASG had offered to sell investors “En Primeur” wine, or wine that had yet to be bottled.
Under this scheme, investors would have to wait for a few years for the wine to be bottled.
Thereafter, PLASG would store the wine on the investors’ behalf in an overseas warehouse for a number of years.
Ko allegedly conspired with another individual, Koo Han Jet, to “deceive investors into believing that PLASG would transfer ownership of the wines to the investors”, police said.
They had dishonestly induced the investors to transfer money to PLASG, police added.
Police also said that Ko allegedly conspired with Koo to dishonestly misappropriate a total of S$12,710,310 from the money collected in PLASG’s bank account. This was done by transferring the money to an overseas bank account maintained by Grand Millesimes Limited (GML).
Ko subsequently transferred the money from GML’s overseas bank account to two Singapore bank accounts that were under his control, police said.
He left Singapore in May 2011 shortly before the police started investigations into PLASG’s wine investment scheme, but was arrested after he returned to Singapore in May 2024.
He was charged in court on May 25 for cheating offences in relation to the wine investment scheme, and was slapped with additional charges on Thursday.
Ko faces 15 charges in total.
For dishonestly inducing investors to transfer money to PLASG, Ko faces eight counts of engaging in conspiracy to cheat.
He also faces three counts of engaging in a conspiracy to commit criminal breach of trust, misappropriating around S$12 million by transferring it to an overseas bank account.
The man faces four counts of acquiring the benefits of criminal conduct by transferring misappropriated money back to his two bank accounts in Singapore.
Court proceedings for this matter are ongoing, police said.
Those found guilty of cheating and criminal breach of trust may be jailed for up to 10 and seven years respectively and/or fined for each charge.
Meanwhile, those found guilty of acquiring benefits from their own criminal conduct are liable to an imprisonment term of up to 10 years and/or to a fine not exceeding S$500,000.
A person convicted of an amalgamated charge is liable to two times the amount of punishment to which he would otherwise have been liable for one incident of the offence.