Singapore-based Company Embroiled in Thai-Cambodia Scandal

Suspicious trades in blue-chip shares

By: Andy Wong Ming Jun

Mauerberger and Cambodian princeling Yim Leak. Photo from Whale Hunting

Singapore once again finds itself caught up in the politics of its ASEAN peers with recent revelations involving Capital Asia Investments (CAI), a hitherto-low profile Singaporean fund management company, for its recent track record of outsized trades in Thai blue-chip shares.

The fund is said to be the investment vehicle of Benjamin Mauerberger, a South African national who has emerged in Thai political circles as the link between two controversial Southeast Asian political dynasties: the Shinawatras in Thailand and the Huns in Cambodia.

CAI currently runs as its primary investment management vehicle the “CAI Optimum Fund VCC,” or Variable Capital Company, a new corporate structure for investment funds originally introduced in 2020 which saw enhanced anti-money laundering and due diligence standards imposed earlier in June this year.

This was a direct result of the massive September 2023 scandal in which 10 members of a Chinese money-laundering ring, who became known as the “Fujian Gang,” were found to have registered 109 bogus foreign and Singapore companies under the names of the suspects, of which 66 were incorporated locally.

According to reports on the investigative website Whale Hunting run by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, subsequently corroborated by follow-up reportage in Singapore’s Business Times, in recent months CAI has engineered nearly S$660 million (US$512 million) worth of trades in some of Thailand’s most prominent listed companies, particularly within the energy sector.

(In response to the Whale Hunting series, Mauerberger on October 3 sent a blistering letter to the publication, saying, “I am a law-abiding citizen who respects and complies fully with the laws of every country in which I live, travel, and conduct business. I am proud to be a resident and investor in Thailand, where I have acted transparently, responsibly, and in full compliance with the law. My professional record and personal conduct reflect integrity and accountability.”

The letter went on to stop short of a legal demand for retraction, although it threatened that “if any further acts of harassment continue against us, I reserve the right to pursue all legal actions necessary to safeguard our reputation and interests.”)

The mechanics of the CAI trades are simple but eyebrow-raising: scoop up vast blocks of stock, then flip them through “Big Lot” transactions almost as quickly as they were acquired.

On paper, these are just market maneuvers and not quite the usual stereotyped “pump and dump” scam trading behavior. Yet Mauerberger is alleged to have facilitated the inflow of funds as well as specific Thai-focused trade patterns by CAI on the behest of Cambodian tycoon Yim Leak, a close family associate of the ruling Hun family.

Thai filings show CAI deals intersecting with Finansa Investment, which under its previous incarnation of Pilgrim Finansa Investment was co-founded by Vorapak Tanyawong, awaiting confirmation to become Thailand’s new deputy finance minister following the new minority coalition government’s establishment in September 2025.

Vorapak is currently still a director of Finansa Investment, but is currently embroiled in domestic politicking over his past leadership at the Thai state-owned Krung Thai Bank and ongoing investigations into alleged financial irregularities stemming from loans given in 2016 to a Thai coal mining and distribution company called Energy Earth PCL with which Vorapak is denying involvement.

According to online records, on March 31, CAI paid out Bt610 million (US$18.85 million) through its Optimum Fund VCC to Sansiri Public Company Ltd, one of Thailand’s largest real estate developers, in exchange for 49 percent of Big Touch 3 Co. Ltd., a Sansiri subsidiary. One of Sansiri’s co-founders is billionaire Srettha Thavisin, who served as premier in the Thaksin surrogate Pheu Thai coalition that ruled Thai politics until he was ousted by Thailand’s Constitutional Court in August 2024, to be replaced by Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn.

There is no suggestion of criminal or unethical nature about Sansiri partnering up with CAI with the aforementioned share transaction effectively establishing Big Touch 3 as a joint venture for land or property development deals. But given Mauerberger’s fingerprints over CAI’s other big-ticket stock trades in Thai blue-chip companies, there are questions about the provenance of the sum CAI paid to Sansiri and the ultimate beneficiary owner of the 49 percent minority stake in Big Touch 3. By extension, it provides a foot into Thailand’s notoriously closed-off property development sector, which is teetering on collapse.

VCCs have been one area where the Singapore government was targeting for tighter regulation and more stringent anti-money laundering protocols.

To this end, last November the Singapore government implemented a multi-pronged national strategy involving the Police Force, the Central Narcotics Bureau, and the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to address hazard and guide actions to combat money-laundering amid the rapidly changing risks.

That culminated in a raft of enhanced measures announced on June 30 by MAS, clarifying that money laundering included proliferation financing, prescribing updated minimum information requirements to be obtained by VCC fund managers, setting out shortened maximum durations allowed for filing suspicious transaction reports in the event of any suspicion being triggered, and most pertinently clarifying the areas and requirements regarding screening and establishing wealth and funding sources of prospective clients.

Having individuals linked to powerful political families or individual entities is a compliance officer’s nightmare. Known in industry parlance as Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), the very knowledge of their involvement with any financial institution or trading transaction should, in theory, trigger automatic engagement of enhanced due diligence (DD) and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols.

Instead, CAI’s trades look like a clinic in how to pile risk upon risk: opaque ownership structures, unexplained funding sources, and lightning-fast flips that could mask round-tripping of capital in a cross between playing Russian dolls and shell games.

Singapore’s Monetary Authority (MAS) holds fund managers to strict anti-money laundering and due diligence rules. In theory, a firm like CAI must prove it knows not only its clients but the source of every dollar flowing into high-value trades. Whether MAS has already knocked on CAI’s door remains unknown and thus far MAS has remained tight-lipped, simply stating to Business Times that “All financial institutions in Singapore, including fund managers, are required to put in place controls to mitigate money laundering/terrorism financing risks. This includes conducting due diligence on their customers and establishing the sources of wealth and funds of higher-risk customers and their beneficial owners, prior to entering into any fund management arrangement.”

Thailand, too, can’t ignore the optics. Seeing shares in companies like Bangchak Corporation, a formerly state-owned conglomerate key to Thai national prestige and energy security change hands in billion-baht blocks through an obscure Singapore fund, only for the names behind the curtain to trace back to shadowy figures ostensibly acting at the behest of the ruling family in control of Cambodia, stirs questions about Thailand’s stock market integrity against hostile foreign disruptions. Especially when the foreign disruptor is also one that only recently fought a five-day border skirmish with Thailand, purportedly with tacit Chinese military aid provided on top of premeditated planning since February 2025.

For Singapore, the danger posed by CAI’s involvement in the ongoing Thai-Cambodian political soap opera isn’t just regulatory. Even if no law has been broken, the appearance of impropriety can be toxic. Global banks that clear or finance these trades with funds originating from Cambodian entities risk being tainted by association, particularly so in light of the latest US State Department report on global human trafficking’s description of Cambodia being the “absolute global epicenter of next-gen transnational fraud in 2025… with the enormously profitable scamming industry estimated to be worth between US$12.5 to US$19 billion and making up 60 percent of Cambodia’s GDP.”

As one compliance veteran in Singapore who wishes to remain anonymous put it, “This is exactly how scandals metastasize, with opaque actors, political money, and enablers who know how to play the system.”

The past career background of CAI’s CEO, Eugene Tang, is also of interest. Beyond Tang’s description of his role at CAI as “head of strategic development,” he is also described as having past stints at UBS, United Overseas Bank (UOB) Kay Hian, and One Asia Investment Partners (OAIP). Tang’s corporate profile on the CAI website identifies him as Head of Client Solutions at UOB, helping to “jumpstart their wealth management division and introducing wealth management concepts to complement the bank’s client stockbroking activities.”

In July, UOB was fined S$5.6 million (US$4.35 million) by the MAS for its involvement in the record-breaking S$3 billion (US$2.3 billion) Chinese money-laundering scandal which first exploded in August 2023. Whilst MAS didn’t disclose the scale of UOB’s business dealings with members of the “Fujian 10” syndicate, it noted that UOB’s fine was justified due to lapses in customer risk assessment, inadequate protocol for rating money laundering risks presented by their customers, failing to sufficiently establish and corroborate the source of wealth for higher-risk profile customers, and failing to adequately review relevant transactions flagged as suspicious by their own systems with unusually large sums and inconsistencies. In short, a failure on multiple levels of AML/DD procedures.

According to his defunct LinkedIn profile associated with his time at UOB, Eugene Tang was UOB’s Head of Client Solutions and instrumental in the bank’s establishment of its wealth management division in February 2013.

Tang’s last corporate role prior to setting up CAI was as wealth management vice president at OAIP, a company whose license was stripped in April 2017 by MAS over mismanagement of client funds. One of Tang’s subordinate directors was subsequently jailed for defrauding investors.

Whether Tang was ever held responsible for failing in his fiduciary “check and balance” duties as wealth management vice president at OAIP is unknown, but considering how he set up CAI as founding CEO merely two months after the collapse of his previous fund management company into financial scandal it is highly unlikely that he was ever scrutinized by MAS with an eye for potential penalties.

One of the things which came out of the “Fujian 10” money laundering scandal in 2023 was how insufficient MAS enforcement action in Singapore’s financial services industry led to an industry-wide attitude of complacency about doing proper due diligence and anti-money laundering security checks as “administrative paperwork speed bumps in the way of making money.” Eugene Tang and CAI are the latest examples of this complacency.