SINGAPORE: A man accused of carrying out a multi-million-dollar luxury goods scam with his wife was given two new charges, one involving fraudulently trading a sum of more than S$24 million (US$18 million), on Thursday (Oct 5).

Singaporean Pi Jiapeng, 28, was handed a charge each of fraudulent trading under the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act, and failing to exercise diligence in his duties as a director of Tradeluxury, under the Companies Act. 

The charge for fraudulent trading states that between Mar 1, 2022 and Jun 19, 2022, Pi knowingly carried on the business of Tradenation for a fraudulent purpose, which was to take orders for luxury watches.

He allegedly collected payments amounting to S$24,782,798 from customers, even though he knew Tradenation did not have “any reasonable expectation of fulfilling these orders given its financial condition”, according to his charge sheet. 

Pi was also accused of failing to exercise reasonable diligence while discharging his duty as a director of Tradeluxury. He allegedly failed to supervise the affairs of Tradeluxury, resulting in the company carrying on its business for a “fraudulent purpose”, between Mar 9, 2022, and May 3, 2022, his charge sheet stated. 

He now faces a total of seven charges, including cheating, failing to sign a statement, and leaving Singapore without presenting his passport.

Pi’s case has been fixed for a pre-trial conference on Oct 11. 

His wife, 28-year-old Thai national Siriwipa Pansuk, is due to return in court on Thursday afternoon.