http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News...28-336251.html
Profitable Plots directors charged with cheating
By Grace Leong
SINGAPORE - Three directors of beleaguered land banking firm Profitable Plots were each charged with 86 criminal counts of cheating investors of US$2.4 million on investments related to an industrial lubricant called Boron.John Andrew Nordmann, Timothy Nicholas Goldring and Geraldine Anthony Thomas were each charged in Singapore's Subordinate Courts with abetment for conspiracy to defraud 86 investors, according to charges brought on behalf of the Commercial Affairs Department by Kevin Yong, deputy public prosecutor for the Attorney-General's Chambers.The three directors were each accused of authorising an unidentified agent of Profitable Plots to mislead investors into thinking their funds 'would be used exclusively to finance the purchase of Boron CLS Bond, that had purportedly been pre-sold to major corporations, which representation (they) knew to be untrue.'It is unclear how many of the Boron investors are from Singapore. So far, no criminal charges have been brought against Profitable Plots over the land investment products it offered.'This will give comfort to the PP investors who've been anxiously waiting for the outcome of the investigations,' said David Gerald, president and chief executive of Securities Investors Association (Singapore).Wendell Wong, Profitable Plots' lawyer and a director of Drew & Napier LLC, said he had requested for his clients' bail to be reduced because the amount of S$600,000 for each defendant was 'grossly excessive to secure the defendants' attendance in court.'The court yesterday ordered Mr Wong's clients' bail to be reduced to S$400,000 each. 'But since all three can't post bail at S$400,000 each, they're remanded at Singapore Changi Remand Prison pending a criminal case disclosure conference on April 20'.Mr Wong said the defendants will be claiming trial and defending the charges against them.To date, more than 320 complaints have been filed with CAD against Profitable Plots, which was accused of cheating investors of more than S$30 million in various schemes it had promoted, according to a report from CAD earlier this month.It is estimated that about 1,500 Singaporeans and 4,000 foreigners invested in Profitable Plots, which was set up in 2004. A large majority of these investors are retirees who invested their savings on the promise of high returns.The company's clients, mostly retail investors, had put their money into various investments it offered, including land in Britain and the Philippines, and the industrial lubricant, Boron.Among other things, the investors wanted to know what went wrong and whether the company had ever intended to honour its promise to pay a 12.5 per cent return on their investments in Boron and a real estate project in the Philippines.The CAD, in an Oct 12 report, said it seized the company's bank accounts on suspicion of fraud relating to Profitable Plots' marketing of the investment scheme involving Boron.The report said that a S$25.8 million loss incurred by Profitable Plots and its related companies in FY 2009 and its inability to honour its obligations to the Boron investors gave the CAD grounds to suspect that the investment schemes were concocted to defraud its clients.It compared the complainants' claims amounting to some S$9.5 million to the company's cash balance of S$277,590.'In addition, the directors had benefited from the scheme as their reported remuneration in FY08 and FY09 was $4,431,539 and $4,181,174, respectively,' the CAD report said.In a statement posted on Jan 27, Profitable Plots said: 'It has been reported in the press that Profitable Plots had liabilities or over S$20 million which PP categorically denies. For financial year ended March 2009, draft accounts (they have not been filed yet due to the ongoing investigation) showed net current assets of S$95 million.'This article was first published in*The Business Times.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by mcmlxxvi
