• Jeffrey Ong Su Aun now faces 76 charges in total
• Among his new charges, he is said to have misappropriated about S$17.48 million from another client in 2015 and 2016
• He also purportedly cheated the client’s board of directors and stopped them from investigating missing monies in an escrow account

SINGAPORE — The former managing partner of JLC Advisors, who went missing in May last year along with more than S$33 million from a client's escrow account, has been accused of further wrongdoing, including cheating auditor Ernst & Young and pocketing monies from another client.

Lawyer Jeffrey Ong Su Aun — who turned 43 in August — was charged on Tuesday (Oct 20) with 14 more counts of criminal breach of trust as an attorney and five counts of cheating.

This brings his total number of charges including forgery, to 76. The charges involve a total sum of S$69.2 million and US$4.85 million (S$6.58 million).

Ong remains in remand after being arrested in Malaysia last year.

He is now accused of misappropriating about S$17.48 million from precision engineering firm CW Group Holdings and its subsidiaries over nine months — from August 2015 to July 2016.

The monies were held in CW Group’s escrow account according to court documents. 

An escrow account is used predominantly by solicitors here to control the flow of funds during various stages of the transaction for a project, for instance, the sale of a property.

Ong also allegedly conspired with CW Group’s executive director, Mr Wong Koon Lup, and other unnamed persons to cheat the firm’s board of directors in August 2018.

Ong is accused of deceiving the board into believing that 49.6 million euros (S$79.3 million) were transferred from CW Group’s escrow account to investment firm Kingsblade Kabushiki Kaisha to hold on behalf of a CW Group subsidiary, SG (BVI) Limited.

By doing so, he purportedly stopped the board from investigating the missing monies in the account.

Court documents stated that on four occasions, he conspired with Mr Wong to cheat Ernst & Young into believing the escrow account held a certain balance of monies:

• Feb 15, 2016: S$52 million
   
• March 9, 2017: S$32.2 million, US$9 million and HKS$2.7 million (S$472,000)
   
• March 12, 2018: S$40.6 million
   
• March 14, 2018: S$38.4 million

His actions allegedly made Ernst & Young issue a favourable audit of CW Group’s Singapore-based subsidiaries.

Ong is now represented by Mr Tan Hee Joek and Ms Kate Loo. He will return to court on Nov 25.

PREVIOUS CHARGES

The court previously heard that Ong fled Singapore 10 days before a May 23 Singapore Exchange filing by Allied Technologies which first put the spotlight on Ong and JLC Advisors.

Allied Technologies had been told by JLC Advisors that S$33.4 million from their account may have been paid out under Ong's instruction.

About two weeks after absconding, Ong was arrested in a Kuala Lumpur hotel while holding a stolen Malaysian passport. He had disposed of his mobile phone before fleeing and was found to have a new one with a Chinese SIM card.

Prosecutors previously said that he got a friend to take him to Malaysia and made arrangements to stay in two locations, an office and a hotel, which he did not pay for with credit cards.

Ong is accused of misappropriating a total of S$33,839,674.97 from Allied Technologies' escrow account from Oct 31, 2017 to Aug 27, 2018.

He was also charged with forging a cheque for S$33,153,416.56 around April 15 last year — a month before he fled Singapore. 

He is said to have faked the signature of JLC senior partner Vincent Lim on the cheque and then showed it to Allied Technologies.

Earlier, Ong was charged with pocketing US$4.85 million from the law firm’s bank account around Oct 23, 2017. He also allegedly made fraudulent statements of accounts for the said bank account from October 2017 to February 2019.

In addition, he allegedly induced a company called CCJ Investments to disburse a sum of S$6 million in February last year.