Allegedly Bilked Investors Say They Get No Help from Singapore Police

Australian entrepreneur spent their funds on luxury living they say

Fiona and Nigel with Lee Hsien Loong

For five years, disgruntled investors say they have been attempting futilely to get Singaporean authorities to act against an Australian entrepreneur who they allege bilked them out of US$1.5 million to invest in what was described as environmentally friendly projects across Asia. The investors say they have appealed to the Singaporean police, tax office, and ACRA (Accounting and Corporate Regulation Authority) but nothing has been done.

Australian Nigel Grier showed them pictures of his family posing with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, they say, but Grier replied in an interview with Asia Sentinel that “I do not know what relevance my relationship with former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong has to this matter. The complainants should understand that such accusations carry very serious consequences. Regardless, I confirm that former PM Lee is not involved in any of these matters and that I do not have a personal relationship with him, his cabinet, or his family.”

The investors filed a police report in 2019 in Singapore against Grier, who they allege cheated them out of US$1.5 million, which he is accused of pocketing with his wife Fiona. Grier, they say left Singapore for Perth in response to their filing the police complaints although he returned to Singapore in July of 2023. They have since been attempting to get him to repay their investments. When the victims learned he was back, they say, they alerted the police, tax officials, and ACRA, but have received no response. One of the investors submitted documentation to the tax officials showing evidence of tax evasion.

“I am not aware of any formal reports or complaints that anyone has lodged with the police or tax authorities in Singapore, Grier said in an email from Singapore. “Notably, none of these agencies have contacted me, nor taken any formal action against me. While I have received notifications from the corporate regulatory authority, Accounting Corporate & Regulatory Authority (ACRA), regarding certain regulatory breaches of the Singapore Companies Act, I have promptly rectified these issues or settled the associated penalties. Linking these notifications to any alleged wrongdoing on my part would be injudicious.”

“ I was sure they would act as this was a slam-dunk that would result in at least a million dollars in back taxes and penalties paid to Singapore,” emailed one of the sources, who asked not to be named. “We were really naive to think that his goose was cooked as he was now back in their territory. Yet the authorities didn't lift a finger, or even bother to call him in for questioning. Extremely frustrating and dismaying.”

Singapore, the investors say, does little to enforce financial crimes against small investors despite its reputation as an international financial capital. Their complaints echo those of an Australian woman named Julie O’Connor, whose story was told by Asia Sentinel in January of 2022. O’Connor vainly tilted against the Singapore establishment for six years in an effort to raise claims of fraud and what she called a cover-up by powerful people over the acquisition of the Singapore and Vietnam assets of an Australia-based firm, Strategic Marine Pty Ltd. She alleged her husband Terry O'Connor, a shareholder, was thwarted in his attempts to acquire a controlling interest via pre-emptive rights he possessed. She continues to complain about her treatment by authorities to no avail.

Grier, the investors allege, in 2016 persuaded them to sink the funds into projects described as environmentally beneficial located in Bali and Lombok in Indonesia and in Myanmar. That included US$600,000 for the Bali project, US$600,000 for the Lombok one, and a further US$300,000 for the Myanmar enterprise. The proposals in Bali and Lombok were sold to investors as schemes to recycle waste, primarily water and trash, from hotels in an environmentally sustainable way. In Myanmar, Grier claimed to be building a sustainable eco-village for Karen refugees made homeless by the long-running civil war there. Grier, they say, left Singapore in response to their accusations, an allegation he disagrees with.

“It is true that some of the bondholders brought in by others became hostile around July 2019,” he said. “I did my best to explain matters to each bondholder individually, but to no avail. When a corporation becomes distressed, options rapidly dissipate. Unfortunately, the Convertible Bonds Agreements did not confer any right on the company to convert the bonds into equity. We needed a majority of the bondholders to consent to convert the debt to equity, and despite my best efforts to persuade bondholders to exercise their right of conversion, I was unsuccessful. At this point, our lead investor for the US$5 million capital raise withdrew their support.”

On August 2, 2018, investor Ilya Korovkin, a Swiss national who with a partner put US$100,000 into the project’s bonds, expecting a 12 percent annual return, filed a police report saying that when investors began asking questions, Grier posted pictures of himself putting their checks in the mail. But the pictures were all they got.

No Revenues, No Accounts 

However, except for buying a couple of old shipping containers to sort trash and paying two dozen workers to sort through it for a brief period, the investors say, Grier spent nothing else on any of these three projects and there were no revenues of any kind. He strung investors along between 2016 and 2019, they say, when it became clear that all three projects were going to fail. During this period none of Grier’s companies had filed compulsory annual returns with the company register in Singapore despite repeated promises to deliver the accounts. 

When spooked investors began to ask uncomfortable questions, Grier found an unapproved liquidator, Ruben Potter, to help him obstruct access to financial information about his projects. This was in 2021, but since then the law in Singapore has changed and all liquidators must now be approved by the relevant financial authority. 

“I can say with a high degree of confidence, that GRIER NIGEL ROBERT, and his wife FIONA GRIER TSUI LYN have committed this crime in a deliberate and premeditated fashion, commented one of the investors in Grier’s projects, who wishes to remain anonymous, at the end of a previous article on Grier’s activities. “They lied on various aspects from day one, they moved funds out of the project entities right after receiving them, and they went to great lengths to prevent any of us from seeing any financial records, knowing that these would be incriminating.”

“In 2020, I engaged Ruben Potter to oversee the liquidation process of the companies, as they were deemed insolvent within the meaning of the law, Grier said. “Subsequently, certain investors pursued legal action to replace Ruben as the appointed liquidator for reasons best known to them. Their efforts succeeded, resulting in the appointment of a different liquidator. Throughout this transition, I have diligently extended my full cooperation to the new liquidator, providing all requested information and documentation. Despite initiating this process four years ago, an endpoint remains undetermined.”

Obstructing the Truth 

Before investors were able to change the liquidator, Grier had strong support during the first failed liquidation attempt by Potter from Singaporean Shinwen Yap, who invested S$20,000 (US$14,822) into one of Grier’s companies just before the liquidation proceedings began in early 2020. Although Grier’s businesses had appeared dead for many months, by investing the S$20,000 Yap became an official creditor and sided with Grier against the original creditors, and also introduced Grier to Potter, the unapproved liquidator.

Yap in 2022 was found by a Singapore court to have run a stock swindle that netted him US$13.6 million while failing to deliver WeWork shares to a Korean financial institution. The court found him guilty of dissipating investors' assets through a complex web of companies he controlled. But Yap, like Grier, wasn’t punished in any way. Later that year, the investors were able to remove Grier’s liquidator through a challenge in the Singapore High Court and appointed their own independent and approved liquidator. Once this process was complete Grier was forced to comply with the liquidation process and provide all financial transactions for the three companies into which investors had poured US$1.5 million. 

Where the Money Went

The financial details, according to the investors, showed that funds they deposited in the bank accounts of the project companies were immediately moved to the parent company’s bank account, leaving the project companies with no assets and with no revenue coming in from any business activity. After the approval of the independent liquidator in 2022, Grier was formally questioned about transferring the money to the parent company. He claimed he and his wife Fiona had the right to do so and provided employment contracts for a generous US$10,000 a month for himself and SGD$10,000 for his wife. He claimed they had the right to spend the funds as they wished, including for their children’s school fees.

The true money trail showed that most of the funds paid to Grier’s companies by investors were spent by the Griers on their lavish lifestyle in Singapore and later in Perth, the investor group say. It is worth noting that “It took us three years, lawyers, liquidators, and not insignificant funds to find out exactly what they did, but there is no doubt today that the bulk of the money that was raised for funding the Karen refugee project, and the sustainability projects in Bali and Lombok, simply funded the Griers' lifestyle,” wrote the same unnamed investor. “Indeed, when questioned about the expenses in a formal letter, Grier didn't deny anything but said that based on the employment contracts (that they signed themselves as they controlled all the entities) he and his wife had the right to draw huge salaries and expenses (essentially without limit) on top of that. No wonder the projects failed, given that almost all the funds were diverted to their own purse.”

Not true, Grier said. “The investors that I brought into the project are still backing me or at least giving me the benefit of the doubt, whereas those brought in by others are unsurprisingly disgruntled.”