Director behind AI trading investment schemes charged with cheating

SINGAPORE: A company director behind AI trading investment schemes was on Tuesday (Jan 7) charged in court with cheating.

Ong Kai Min, 42 was the director of Singapore Index Trading Institute, Bookhero, OKM Holdings and C7 Traders Vanuatu Limited, the police said in a news release on Tuesday.

Between May 2019 and March 2021, Singapore Index Trading Institute offered AI trading schemes where its AI purportedly conducted trades into financial instruments on investors’ behalf on the C7 Traders platform.

C7 was a Vanuatu-registered entity that purportedly operated an offshore brokerage named C7 Traders, read the news release.

The cheating charges allege that Ong had dishonestly induced investors into transferring more than US$500,000 and SGD3.9 million (US$2.86 million) to Singapore Index Trading Institute and/or Bookhero by deceiving them into believing that their investments would be subsequently transferred to C7 for trading.

He is also alleged to have obstructed justice by "instructing an employee to delete records, including emails and documents, and to reformat computers" belonging to Singapore Index Trading Institute, OKM Holdings and C7 in early March 2021, police said.

This was shortly before "investors received news of C7’s abrupt closure and default".

Ong was charged with 23 counts of cheating, including 19 combined charges under Section 124(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

He was also charged with one count of obstructing justice.

Ong's S$200,000 bail has been extended and his next hearing is scheduled for Feb 4.

A person convicted of cheating may face a fine, a jail term of up to 10 years or both. If convicted of an amalgamated charge, the punishment can be doubled compared to what would apply for a single offence.

Anyone convicted of obstructing justice may face a fine, a jail term of up to seven years or both.