Man who skipped bail extradited to S'pore, charged with running bogus investment scheme that took S$18m from investors

SINGAPORE — A 50-year-old United States citizen who jumped bail here has been extradited back to Singapore and charged on Monday (April 3) with running a bogus investment scheme.

The scheme collected about S$18 million from more than 1,000 investors but was not actually involved in any substantive level of investment, the Singapore police said in a statement on Monday.

Michael Philip Atkins was charged in court on Monday with knowingly being a party to carrying on a business with a fraudulent purpose, the police said.

Atkins was a director and shareholder of Aureus Capital. Between May 2013 and July 2014, the firm offered an investment scheme claiming that it would trade in leveraged foreign exchange on behalf of investors.

A leveraged investment is one using borrowed money.

The police said that Atkins' firm did not operate substantive trading activities and had no sustainable means of funding its operations or the promised payouts to its investors.

In July 2014, Atkins was arrested and released on police bail while under investigation by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).

He later failed to report to CAD for further investigations as required though the police did not state exactly when he skipped bail. A warrant of arrest and Interpol red notice were issued against him.

“The whereabouts of Atkins were traced with the assistance of the authorities in the US and he was successfully extradited to Singapore on March 18, 2023,” police said.

If found guilty, Atkins could be jailed for up to seven years, fined up to S$15,000, or both.