On 29 June 2026, Giam Zi Hin, Luke (“Giam”) was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for fraudulent trading under Section 340(5) of the Companies Act. Giam was a key member of a criminal syndicate behind a Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) Missing Trader Fraud (“MTF”) scheme involving approximately S$114 million in fictitious sales. He pleaded guilty mid-way during trial to one count of fraudulent trading, and consented to another fraudulent trading charge being taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing. Please refer to Annex A for more background information and an illustration of a GST MTF scheme.  

2.       Giam’s conviction marks the end of court proceedings against a total of eight accused persons who were charged for their involvement in the same GST MTF scheme.  

Giam’s involvement in the GST MTF scheme  

3.       In the present case, under Giam’s directions, Nagore Trading Pte Ltd (“Nagore”), a Singapore-incorporated GST-registered company, used forged invoices of at least 12 local suppliers to create a false appearance that Nagore had purchased and paid these suppliers for goods, together with 7% GST payable on these goods which these suppliers should have paid to IRAS had the transactions been genuine.

4.       Nagore then purportedly sold these “goods” to other GST-registered companies (known as “buffer companies”) and issued falsified Nagore sales invoices to these buffer companies to lend credence to these sales.

5.       xShine Enterprise Pte Ltd (“xShine”) was one such buffer company. The sales from Nagore to xShine were all shams, as the “goods” purportedly transacted were non-existent.

6.       Giam admitted to directing the operations of xShine for the fraudulent purpose of being a buffer company within this GST MTF scheme. Between July 2015 and January 2016, Giam instructed Tan Boon Leong Marcus (“Tan”), a director of xShine to, among other things: 

a.    endorse the falsified sales invoices issued by Nagore and issue cash vouchers of xShine to Nagore for the purported sales to create a guise of genuine sale; and

b.    falsify and issue at least 127 sales invoices of xShine, with sales value of least S$46 million, to exporters.

7.       The GST MTF scheme crystallises when the exporters subsequently export the “goods” purchased from the buffer companies to overseas buyers pre-arranged by the criminal syndicate. Where required, Giam instructed Tan to deliver physical goods to the exporter to give the false impression that the sales were genuine. These physical goods would often not correspond to the goods reflected on the falsified sales invoices of xShine, in terms of their description or quantity. Further, for at least 16 of the 127 fictitious sales invoices, Giam instructed Tan to make cash deposits of close to S$7 million into the bank account of one exporter to represent payments from overseas buyers to the exporter. The exporter in turn paid xShine, with Tan retaining a portion as commission before passing the remaining monies to Giam in cash or via transfers to foreign bank accounts on Giam’s instructions.

8.        The falsified sales invoices of Nagore and xShine, as well as their GST filings, ultimately formed the basis of fraudulent input tax claims amounting to near S$8 million made to IRAS.

Giam’s conviction

9.       Midway through his trial, Giam pleaded guilty to knowingly being a party to the carrying on of the business of xShine for a fraudulent purpose. He was convicted on one charge of fraudulent trading and was sentenced to imprisonment of six years’ imprisonment. He consented to another fraudulent trading charge in relation to Nagore being taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.

10.      To date, six co-accused persons (including Tan) have been convicted for offences relating to fraudulent trading, forgery and accounts falsification and sentenced to imprisonment terms ranging from three years to four years and fifteen months for their involvement in this GST MTF scheme. One other co-accused person was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment for forgery. Details of the outcomes for these seven co-accused persons are given in Annex B (PDF, 91KB).

11.          The Police and IRAS have zero tolerance towards GST MTF schemes and will not hesitate to take strong enforcement actions against perpetrators of such fraudulent arrangements.

12.          Any GST-registered business that claims input tax on any supply made to them which it knew or should have known to be part of a MTF arrangement, will be denied input tax and also be subject to a 10% surcharge on the input tax denied. Businesses are therefore strongly advised to perform due diligence checks and take appropriate actions to address the risks identified to avoid participating in transactions suspected to be part of a MTF arrangement. For more information, please refer to the IRAS e-Tax Guide “GST: Guide on Due Diligence Checks to Avoid Being Involved in Missing Trader Fraud”.

Singapore Police Force
Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore 

Annex A