Minister: Last week, on the 26th of February, raids were conducted by our law enforcement agencies. Three persons were arrested, and they've been charged for suspected fraud. Investigations are going on.
There are potential offences under section 424B of the penal code, and that offence is potentially punishable with imprisonment of up to 20 years, or a fine, or both.
There has been some speculation linking this case with the potential circumvention of US export controls for advanced Nvidia chips. This case is unrelated. It's an independent investigation conducted by Singapore. We received an anonymous tip off. It was not a tip-off or information from any country or sovereign entity, but we took the tip-off seriously. Investigations showed potential breaches of our domestic laws, and so we moved quickly to deal with it.
I thought it’s useful to set out what we know based on the information we currently have - I have to emphasise, it's very preliminary information.
Essentially, the case relates to servers with chips embedded in them coming into Singapore, and then from Singapore, they went to Malaysia. So, if I can show you a map. This is how US server suppliers, I think, Dell and Supermicro, in this case, they supplied to Singapore-based companies, and from Singapore, it went to Malaysia. The question is, whether Malaysia was a final destination, or from Malaysia it went to somewhere else, which we do not know for certain at this point. But we assessed that there may have been false representation on the final destination of the servers.
As I said, based on the documents that we currently have, the servers were supplied by Dell and Supermicro, but the servers may have been intended for some other country, even though from Singapore they went to Malaysia, and if there were false representations within Singapore about the final destination, that's an offence under Singapore laws.
Now, we assessed that the servers may contain items which are subject to US export controls. I say, we assessed, we do not know certain, so that's the best we can put it at. And we expect all companies operating in Singapore to take into account other countries’ unilateral export controls which apply to their international business activities. And we also expect companies operating in Singapore to conduct their businesses transparently.
Third – it will be obvious from the map – we only know what we know in Singapore, we have no visibility beyond our borders. And therefore we have asked both the US and Malaysia for more information so as to assist in our investigations. The US, because the supplying companies are linked to the US, we will need information and documents from the United States; Malaysia because the servers went there. Information on where they went from Malaysia, if at all they went anywhere else, would obviously be within Malaysian control. We will need the information, both from the United States and Malaysia, for us to both investigate and potentially prosecute the cases.
We have longstanding, good cooperation with the law enforcement agencies in the US and Malaysia, and on that basis we have asked. And if the servers did contain US export-controlled items, we have told the US that we would be happy to work with them, and support any investigations in the US on that.
There is longstanding cooperation between the US and Singapore on these issues. And that includes joint outreach activities to companies operating in Singapore, so US agencies and we have done outreach activities, we have told companies in Singapore how the US’ rules, regulations, export controls may apply to their activities.
Really, it is in our interest to protect the integrity of the business environment in Singapore, to protect Singapore’s reputation.
The three individuals, as I said, we assessed that they may have made fraudulent representations. We are in the midst of investigations. Whether the final charges stay in this shape, or whether they are in a different form, really depends on the information that we get. Some questions have been raised about how Singapore treats companies operating in Singapore.
We are a trusted, open, and inclusive international business hub with a strong rule of law. We have companies here from all over the world – the US, China, Asia, Europe, everywhere. We welcome reputable businesses to operate from here, to be part of our business environment, and to contribute to our growth.
But we will not tolerate individuals and companies violating our laws, or taking advantage of their association with Singapore to circumvent the export controls of other countries. This applies to all our trading partners.
We will act firmly against individuals and companies that flout our laws, including the making of false representations. Thank you.
Straits Times: Can I just check if you have any comments – I know you mentioned Dell and Supermicro that are companies involved in this case. Are there any links to Nvidia? Because there has been some Parliamentary discussion last week.
Minister: You know, the raid took place on the 26th (February) There had been some investigations before that. It is a bit difficult for us to go into details for two, three reasons. One, the amount of information that we have is preliminary. Two, there is some information we have which obviously we can't disclose publicly right now because investigations are going on. And I don't want to move from making statements based on assessment into conjecture. We assessed that the servers may contain Nvidia chips. I think that's the highest I can put it at, at this point.
Lianhe Zaobao: Just to be very sure, did we take these actions at the requests of the Americans? And we understand there’s a company that was registered in 2021, Luxuriate your life, that is involved in this case. So what do we know about these companies and operations in Singapore over the past few years?
Minister: Well, on the first question, no. As I said, there was an anonymous tip-off, and that wasn't from any sovereign entities, not the United States. The United States has not made any request in relation to this matter. To us, this was an independent investigation commenced in Singapore based on tip-off. We took it seriously and we investigated. On your second question, you know, our investigations are focused on these particular set of circumstances, as to you know what further the investigative agencies will find, how far they've gone, is not something we can go into right now.
Financial Times: Could you also discuss the Singaporean entity that was sanctioned by the EU last week? Has there been any actions taken against that entity?
Minister: That is outside the purview of my understanding. Ministry of Trade and Industry will be a better ministry to ask that question, because I’m a policeman – I deal with fraud, and this is a case. – It's a multi-agency effort, but it's been something that now, Ministry of Home Affairs, my agencies are investigating. But EU issues – it's something that should be addressed to MTI.
Bloomberg News: We understand that the case is still open and there is investigation going on, but if there's any other further information you can share about if any of the chips went to China, because there are a couple of other cases still under investigation, including if there are any chips that went to China, and in particular, Deepseek.
Minister: Well, if we have that information, at an appropriate time, we will be happy to share. At present, what we know is that the servers went to Malaysia. And that's why I said, we have asked Malaysia for information. It came from US suppliers, they went to Malaysia, and that's the current state of knowledge. There are some basis to make an assumption that, perhaps from Malaysia, they went elsewhere – but I don't want to speculate.
Wall Street Journal: Two questions. Firstly, can you give us a little bit more details – in terms of these people who were doing it. What was the false representation? How was it made? To whom was it made? That would be the first question. And then the second question, really, is a very broad one. In Washington, the house representatives have pulled out Singapore as a possible third-party country abetting the sale of these de facto banned Nvidia chips. How is Singapore reacting to it? How are you trying to clear our reputation?
Minister: On the first question, essentially fraud is when you make false statements to induce someone to act in a way which they otherwise would not have acted. Basically, making misrepresentations in the context, and that's a criminal offence. Our investigations suggest that the declarations that have been made to our agencies on various documents, customs-related documents, may – and I'm not being comprehensive here; I don't want to make this sound like a court where I tell you exactly which documents – but declarations that have been made about ultimate destination of the servers, may not have been accurate. And if so, then our agencies would have been defrauded, and that's the basis of investigations.
On the second, I would make this point: these investigations were commenced by us, based on a tip-off. We moved in, and if you notice the charges, they are pretty serious. And we will always be happy to work with any country that discloses information to us which suggests that our laws have been breached. We will take firm and decisive action. So if the US has information, and we have told them that, we will be happy to receive that information and act on it. At a broader level, I assume that Singapore is not the only destination where these servers come. And as you can see from this case, the servers went from Singapore to a country other than China. So I think these are facts to remember.
Channel News Asia: In terms of the precautionary measures that we will be taking to ensure that such events do not happen in the future, are there any checks that we are looking at?
Minister: I think that's a question that's best addressed to MTI. Because we are a substantial trading nation, we want the business environment to be clean. We want to make sure our companies don't say things to us in declarations which are false. But as you see on all of this, it's a chain. It's not one country. And I think for these things to be clean, all the countries in the chain will have to work together, and we can only enforce our domestic laws and others will have to enforce their domestic laws.
Nikkei Asia: In view of this incident, would the government be looking at tightening regulations and laws over the movements of high-tech hardware, like chips, servers, across borders, in what area? And what kind of a potential new Bill might we see introduced in Parliament?
Minister: I think it's very preliminary to deal with that. As you can see, the issue is not with the law. We have the laws. It's with enforcement, and we are enforcing. But where you have, as I said, an international chain of events, it will not be possible for any one country to deal with this by itself. We can deal with it as a domestic matter. And my sense is that we have adequate laws to deal with our domestic situation, to keep the environment clean. But eventually, if we find out more facts, whether we will change the laws, I don't rule that out. That's something that has got to be assessed in the future.
Reuters: The three men were arrested in the raid on 22 locations was previously reported, with a total of nine people arrested. How many companies did this involve and are these arrests all related?
Minister: Can I suggest you write in for that, and the agencies will respond in detail.
AFP: Do we know how many servers were there?
Minister: Again, I don't have visibility on the precise numbers. Thank you.
