Restaurant Cicada linked to US$1b fraud involving Singaporean trader Ng Yu Zhi shuts

A restaurant linked to the Singapore businessman at the heart of an alleged US$1 billion scam has closed down after Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. terminated its bank account, the Straits Times reported Sunday, citing a director of the restaurant, Bloomberg said.

OCBC, Singapore’s second-largest bank, closed the Cicada restaurant’s account, which left it unable to pay employees, the Straits Times cited Raymond Lim, a director of Cicada YJL, as saying.

The account closure came after the arrest of Ng Yu Zhi, who has been accused of fraud and cheating investors, according to the report.

Ng owns 30 pecent of Cicada and had gifted the majority holdings to a Chinese female friend, the newspaper said.

Two other restaurants, Nishikane and Sake Labo, are also for sale and its operator Envy Hospitality Holdings is seeking S$1.5 million (US$1.1 million) for each, according to the newspaper, without saying where it obtained the information.

Ng, 34, has been charged with orchestrating what police describe as one of Singapore’s biggest suspected investment frauds, whereby investors put in about S$1.46 billion into a nickel trading scheme run by his Envy group of companies.