SINGAPORE - Four Singaporeans were charged on July 8 over their alleged involvement in a Value Added Tax (VAT) carousel fraud scheme involving gold smuggling.

They had allegedly operated Singapore-registered corporate entities which imported signal converters from two suppliers operated by a criminal syndicate in China, said the police in a statement.

Court documents did not state how much gold was smuggled in, and what it was worth.

They also did not say what the signal converters were used for.

Seow Choon Pheng, 63, who was the director of Macropac System, was handed two charges for his alleged involvement in an arrangement to facilitate another person’s control of benefits from criminal conduct.

He was also charged with two counts of purportedly carrying on a business for a fraudulent purpose.

Seow Choon Lien, 62, who was the director of Megaspeed Services, was handed four similar charges.

Chu Tung Wu, 60, was charged with one count of allegedly being involved in an arrangement to facilitate another person’s control of benefits from criminal conduct.

He was also charged with one count of carrying on a business for a fraudulent purpose, and one count of abetting another person to exercise reasonable diligence.

Court documents stated that Chu had allegedly proposed that Tan Mui Koi assume directorship of Seg Metallic Electronics Trading as a “sleeping” director, while Chu ran the business between May 2019 and May 2021.

Tan, 61, is accused of failing to exercise due diligence as the director of Seg Metallic Electronics Trading.

In their statement, the police said the criminal syndicate would arrange for the gold to be concealed in the signal converters, which were then declared as high-tech products and exported to Singapore at inflated prices.

The Chinese authorities would then be defrauded of substan...