S’porean jailed 1.5 years for faking his death in Indonesia while out on bail

SINGAPORE — Facing two-and-a-half years behind bars for misappropriating three million shares from his company’s subsidiary, Ng Kek Wee decided to fake his own death in order to escape punishment.

However, his efforts were thwarted when the authorities found that he had left Indonesia a week before his purported death. He had also continued travelling on his Singapore passport.

On Monday (Feb 17), Ng was sentenced to another one-and-a-half years’ jail, which he will start serving after finishing his initial jail term. The 55-year-old had faked his death while out on bail pending his appeal against his first conviction and sentence.

He pleaded guilty to three charges, including abetting the provision of false information to a public servant.

The court heard that Ng was a former director of Singalab, an electronic business solutions provider. In May 2017, he was convicted after a trial and sentenced to 30 months’ jail for misappropriating shares.

He was released on bail and granted permission to leave Singapore for business reasons while waiting for his appeal.

On the day of the appeal — July 20, 2018 — his lawyer successfully applied for an adjournment. Ng was then seeking treatment in China for various medical ailments and had been found unfit to return to Singapore for the appeal.

In September 2018, Ng’s lawyer applied for another adjournment for similar reasons.

A pre-trial conference was then held before a district judge on Feb 18 last year. Ng’s lawyer said that he would be returning to Singapore for the appeal, so the judge ordered Ng to upload a copy of his flight ticket onto the State Courts’ case management system.

Ng’s lawyer did so a week later. However, unknown to him, Ng had paid an unidentified person in China 300 renminbi (S$60) to make a fake flight itinerary, stating that he was scheduled to return to Singapore two days before the appeal on March 15 last year.

The fake itinerary showed a stopover in Indonesia, too. It was designed to coincide with the date of a forged death certificate he wanted to use, in order to give the impression that he had died in Indonesia.

Ng paid a man in Indonesia, identified in court documents only as Ali Ruslan, S$2,000 to forge the death certificate and email it to Ng’s lawyer.

On March 15 last year, when Ng’s appeal was heard again in the High Court, his lawyer gave the death certificate and an accompanying letter from Ali Ruslan, stating that Ng had died in Indonesia five days ago.

The prosecution asked for time to verify the documents. When the case was heard again in July last year, they gave the court evidence about Ng’s lies.

The High Court judge then issued a warrant of arrest against Ng.

He was nabbed on Aug 13 last year at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, when he used his Singapore passport to enter Malaysia, and taken back here.