Three former employees of the Envy group of companies have been declared bankrupt after failing to repay S$26.6 million in clawbacks tied to the S$1.5 billion nickel-trading Ponzi scheme allegedly run by Ng Yu Zhi, in the latest chapter of Singapore's largest investment fraud. Bankruptcy orders were made on September 17, 2026, against former sales director Lau Lee Sheng, financial accountant Shen Xuhuai, and business development and marketing communications director Guo Yujia, according to the government gazette.
The applications were brought by the liquidators of Envy Global Trading, Envy Management and Envy Asset Management, after the Court of Appeal dismissed appeals by Lau and Shen in June. Singapore's top court had earlier upheld a S$38 million clawback from former Envy staff, ruling that because no genuine nickel trading ever took place and no actual profits were generated, the group had no contractual obligation to pay the commissions, profit-sharing bonuses and referral fees it had showered on its employees. The three-judge panel held that the payments, save for basic salaries, were transactions at an undervalue, effectively gifts funded by fictitious profits. Lau faced a clawback of about S$17 million, Shen about S$6.1 million, with the rest spread among their colleagues.
The underlying fraud was staggering in scale. Ng Yu Zhi allegedly guaranteed investors three-month returns averaging 15 percent on physical nickel trading, claiming the metal would be bought at a discount and resold at a profit to firms including BNP Paribas Commodity Futures. Independent investigators alleged the nickel was nonexistent, and that between S$300 million and S$474 million was transferred to Ng's personal bank accounts. About S$1.5 billion was invested in the alleged scam, with S$731 million returned to investors and around S$1 billion still owed to some 300 victims, including financiers and lawyers. The scheme unravelled after the Monetary Authority of Singapore placed Envy Asset Management on its investor alert list in 2020.
Ng himself was declared bankrupt in 2022, his restaurant closed and his vast collection of sports cars and luxury goods, worth around S$100 million and including the only Pagani Huayra in Singapore, seized by the Commercial Affairs Department. During his trial, one witness testified that two investors in the alleged scheme had died directly or indirectly because of pressure from the case. If convicted, Ng would have executed the largest investment fraud in Singapore's history. The bankruptcy of his former lieutenants closed another loop in the liquidators' painstaking effort to recover money for victims, and reinforced the court's message: in a Ponzi scheme, there are no innocent windfalls, only other people's money.