‘World came crashing down’: Former Envy director and family invested more than $40m in nickel scam
Source: Straits Times
Article Date: 02 Apr 2025
Author: Selina Lum
He says his family invested over $40m and realised fraud only after Ng's arrest.
The former executive director of the Envy companies cried on the stand on April 1 as he talked about how “the world came crashing down” on his family, who had invested more than $40 million in a nickel-trading scam.
Mr Lau Lee Sheng was testifying in the ongoing trial of 37-year-old Ng Yu Zhi, the man accused of masterminding the alleged scam, which attracted $1.46 billion from investors through his companies Envy Asset Management and Envy Global Trading.
Ng faces 108 charges over offences including cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust, money laundering and fraudulent trading.
The prosecution is proceeding on 42 of these charges in the current trial, which began in November 2024.
Mr Lau, a former secondary schoolmate of Ng, whose companies he joined, told the court that he invested $26 million in the scam, while his father put in another $15 million to $16 million.
His mother and two sisters were also investors. The sum of $500,000 that his mother invested was a very significant amount of her life savings, he said.
As at February 2021, he was managing more than $200 million from 30 investors, at least half of whom were family members and relatives.
Mr Lau said he and his family realised “everything was a fraud” when Ng was arrested that year.
During this period, his mother felt a lump in her chest, but did not tell anyone because of the trauma that the family was going through, he said.
She was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer a year later, he said tearfully.
When Judicial Commissioner Christopher Tan asked how she was doing, Mr Lau replied that she was “going on strong”.
Mr Lau also told the court that the liquidators of the Envy companies are seeking to claw back from him more than $17 million, most of which is said to be what he earned in commissions, although he is considered a “non-complicit” employee.
If the liquidators succeed, he would be bankrupt, he said.
The nickel-trading scam attracted $1.46 billion from 947 investors over six years, and Ng allegedly used the invested funds to finance his lavish lifestyle.
Ng told investors he could buy nickel at a discount from an Australian mining company and then sell the metal for sizeable profits.
But prosecutors say no nickel was actually bought or sold; earlier investors were paid with money put in by other investors.
The scheme was offered through Envy Asset Management (EAM) from February 2016.
After EAM was placed on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s investor alert list in March 2020, the scheme was moved to Envy Global Trading.
Mr Lau said he reconnected with Ng in 2015 through a mutual friend.
On Ng’s advice, he invested $50,000 in oil and gas company Seadrill, and received five or six times that amount in returns, he said.
Wanting to learn about investing from Ng, Mr Lau asked him for a job and joined EAM in mid-2016.
Mr Lau said he began querying Ng about the nickel scheme in the second half of 2018, after he could not answer questions about it from high-net-worth individuals who were his prospective customers.
Screenshots of the text messages exchanged between Ng and Mr Lau were shown in court.
In the messages, Mr Lau asked Ng for various documents, and Ng showed him some.
He said he felt assured by the documents, such as bank statements, and Ng’s explanations.
In March 2019, he confronted Ng after learning that the co-founder of Envy, Ms Rhiya Lee, did not have access to its bank accounts.
Later, in a text message, Ng told Mr Lau to trust him, and said he felt hurt by the confrontation.
Mr Lau said: “Today, looking back at this, he was just trying to guilt-trip me.”
The trial continues on April 2.
Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
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