Singapore's high court has convicted two persons in what officials believe is the city-greatest state's market manipulation case, according to a joint statement released Thursday by the Singapore police and Monetary Authority of Singapore.
For almost a decade, Singapore authorities have been investigating potential trading violations in connection with a late 2013 so-called penny-stock collapse that wiped away around S$8 billion ($5.78 billion) off the value of three businesses in a matter of days.
Quah Su-Ling and Malaysian John Soh Chee Wen were the masterminds of a sophisticated scheme to fraudulently inflate the value of Blumont Group Ltd (Blumont), Asiasons Capital Ltd (Asiasons), and LionGold Corp Ltd (LionGold), according to the statement.
The two were convicted of almost a hundred offenses combined, including market manipulation and dishonesty, the statement added.
The incident, in which those stocks surged many times in the months leading up to their collapse, shook investor trust and prompted a series of changes to the city-stock state's trading procedures.
Singapore officials searched more than 50 sites and interrogated more than 70 people during their investigations, the joint statement said. They examined evidence included more than two million emails, 500,000 trading orders, and thousands of telephone records and bank statements.
Soh and Quah will be punished at a later date, since they could not be reached for comment.
A lawyer for Soh did not reply immediately to a request for comment. According to media accounts, Quah was not represented in court.
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