By JAMIE LEE

He was the boss of a now delisted company but for six years, Ang Ah Peng bought and sold memory chips that were of no use just so that banks would pay him for the fake orders and invoices.

By the time his bluff was called, Ang was facing 687 charges amounting to a whopping US$290 million last October that involved banks such as DBS, HSBC, Standard Chartered and UOB.

For the massive scam that ran between 2001 and early 2007 - said to be one of Singapore's largest to date - Ang was sentenced to 14 years' jail yesterday.

Ang, the former managing director of chip recycling firm EC-Asia International, was charged on 30 counts of cheating US$23 million out of banks. Of these, 28 were for cheating charges.

Ang's plan was to tap on the companies' credit facilities even without real business. He persuaded ECI's Hong Kong partners to issue him trade documents which he used to set up a bogus transaction trail. He also circulated money between Hong Kong and Singapore.

The 44-year-old was charged with conspiring with another person to transfer US$81.7 million of the fraud money from Hong Kong to Singapore.

The fake transactions came to light two years ago and Ang turned himself in on April 17 that year.

By that time, the company had owed US$25.9 million to financial institutions and International Factors Singapore.

Another charge related to inflating the company's sales numbers in an initial public offering (IPO) prospectus in 2003.

According to a press release from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) dated May 28, 2003, it had issued an interim stop order on the prospectus that was dated a week earlier.

This was over concerns that the document did not contain adequate disclosure on 'certain matters'. These issues were not specific, but MAS said it had considered them to be material to investors.

The other 600-plus charges on Ang were taken into consideration by the court.

According to Australian website deListed - a site that offers updates and information on companies suspended from listing in Australia - ECI was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2004.

Its shares were suspended from April 20, 2007 on the request of the firm due to 'unresolved financial problems' and was later liquidated.

The company was finally delisted in August after it failed to pay its listing fees.

This article was first published in The Business Times.