SINGAPORE – Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam said a Bloomberg article that mentioned the sale of his property suggested that he was involved in shady deals and possibly money laundering.
Mr Shanmugam said the article implied that his transaction was a secret deal that became “political fodder”, and that he took more money than what the property was worth from people who cannot be identified.
The minister was taking the stand for the third day in an ongoing defamation trial over the article on good class bungalow (GCB) transactions, headlined “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”.
Mr Shanmugam, who is also Home Affairs Minister, and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng have sued Bloomberg and Mr Low De Wei, the reporter who wrote the Dec 12, 2024, piece.
The article mentioned the ministers’ property deals in 2023 – the sale of Mr Shanmugam’s former home in the Queen Astrid Park area to UBS Trustees for $88 million in August 2023 and Dr Tan’s purchase of a bungalow in Brizay Park for nearly $27.3 million.
Over the past three days, Mr Shanmugam has stressed that the article was written to “target” him by using a broader story about bungalow transactions to put out news about the sale of his property.
He cited internal e-mails exchanged among Bloomberg journalists to show that they were trying to find a “hook” to get into the story.
On April 9, Mr Shanmugam was cross-examined briefly by Mr Low’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Chelva Rajah.
The minister said he “wholly disagreed” with Mr Rajah’s suggestion that the article did not allege any criminal, illegal or improper conduct on his part.
Questioned later by his own lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, Mr Shanmugam said the “entire article is false”.
The article opens with the assertion that the ultra-rich in Singapore are “cloaking” their property purchases in secrecy.
It states that deals made without the filing of caveats are “harder to track” because they do not show up in a database maintained by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
A caveat is a legal document that property buyers can submit to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) to register their interest in a property and prevent other people from buying it.
The article also states that more individuals are buying mansions using trusts, to keep their identities private.
It goes on to state that buyers pay a premium for “off-radar” transactions – a suggestion that Mr Shanmugam said was “utter nonsense”.
He said whether a caveat is filed or not does not affect the price agreed on between the buyer and the seller.
“It’s crazy that this kind of article can be put up,” he said, adding that the article was “very carefully crafted” to make the false points as malicious as possible.
Mr Shanmugam said the non-filing of a caveat and the use of a trust did not keep a deal secret because records have to be filed with government agencies.
He said a non-caveated deal does not appear in the URA database, but after the deal is completed, it can be found in a separate system run by the SLA.
Mr Shanmugam added that the article deliberately downplayed Singapore’s vigorous anti-money laundering framework and created the impression that due diligence is left entirely to real estate agents.
“It’s a sleight of hand going towards direct dishonesty,” he said.
Dr Tan took the stand later on April 9, and was cross-examined by Bloomberg’s lawyer, Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan.
Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam (right) and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng leaving the High Court after the trial on April 9.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Mr Sreenivasan described the minister as someone who had “reached the top” of his profession when he entered politics.
Dr Tan replied that in medical school, he was taught “not the pride of knowledge but the humility of wisdom”, before thanking the lawyer for the compliment.
When asked when the Bloomberg article came to his attention, Dr Tan said he read it on the day it was published.
He had decided to sue by Dec 16, 2024, after taking legal advice.
“I was quite disturbed by the article after reading it,” he said.
“I read it over and over again. I just felt that the way the article was drafted put me in a not very good light.”
He said that in October 2024, his press secretary had shown him an e-mail from Mr Low asking for a comment about his property purchase.
The e-mail noted that Dr Tan had bought a GCB at Brizay Park for $27.3 million in 2023 in a non-caveated deal.
Dr Tan said he did not think too much about the matter.
He said: “All the facts are there. You know the purchase price, the year, the location. What is there to comment?”
He added that his understanding is that a caveat is voluntary and whether a buyer decides to file one depends on the level of comfort with the seller.
“I don’t understand what’s so off-radar about it,” said Dr Tan.
The trial continues on April 10.