Serious The interesting case of Kwa Chong Seng and his account in the Panama Papers

Its very interesting for me to see that Kwa Chong Seng (nephew of the former Mrs Lee Kuan Yew) is on the list exposed by a leak of 214,000 accounts. Lets face it, Mr. Kwa is a very connected person. Few people in Singapore are as connected as he is. In addition to being a first cousin of PM Lee Kuan Yew, KCS has leveraged his blood blooded PAP royalty into a series of very high profile and lucrative jobs. The list includes:

Mr. Chong Seng Kwa served as the Chairman and Managing Director of Exxonmobil Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. from December 1999 to October 2011. Mr. Kwa served as an Asia Pacific Retail Sales Director at Exxonmobil Asia Pacific Pte Ltd from November 2003 to October 2011. He served as the President at Esso China Inc. from 1997 to 2011 and its Chairman from 1992 to 2011. He served as a Member of the Management Board at Energy Studies Institute from 2007 to 2009. He has been the Chairman of Neptune Orient Lines Limited. since April 1, 2012 and its Director since January 1, 2012. He has been the Chairman of APL Co Pte Ltd, APL Logistics Ltd, APL (Bermuda) Ltd, Automar (Bermuda) Ltd, and APL Limited since 2012. He has been the Chairman of Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd. since April 25, 2013 and its Independent and Non-Executive Director since September 01, 2012. He has been Non-Executive Chairman of Olam International Limited since October 31, 2015. He serves as Chairman of the Board at Fullerton Fund Management Company Ltd. He served as the Chairman of MediaCorp Pte Ltd. He served as Chairman of the Board of DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited from October 22, 2008 to 2010 and served as its Director until July 26, 2010. He served as a Deputy Chairman at Olam International Limited from October 1, 2014 to October 31, 2015. He served as the Deputy Chairman of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited and Temasek Holdings from 1997 to May 2012. He has been a Director of Seatown Holdings Pte Ltd and Delta Topco Limited since 2012. He has been a non-executive and independent Director of Singapore Exchange Limited since September 20, 2012 and its Lead Independent Director since December 1, 2013. He serves as a Director of Defence Science and Technology Agency. He served as a Director of DBS Group Holdings Ltd and DBS Bank Ltd. from July 29, 2003 to April 2012, and ExxonMobil Oil Singapore Pte Ltd. from 1999 to 2011, Mobil South Asia Investments Ltd from 2000 to 2008, Sinopec SenMei (Fujian) Petroleum Co. Ltd. from 2007 to 2011. Mr. Kwa served as a Member of Public Service Commission since 1997. He has a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from National University of Singapore.

So, my next question is that a man of his wealth and connections should have easily be able to set up any top secret confidential account in Singapore. After all, many Myanmar generals, Thai druglords, Indonesian corrupt businessmen, Robert Mugabe, etc. regularly use their bank accounts to hide their money in singapore. Singapore is notorious as a haven for such people. Why then did KCS have to open an account with lawyers in Panama?

People do it for many reasons. One being to hide and shelter money as a tax haven. For example, when Stanley Kubrick died, his entire country estate was held by a Panamanian company, and hence he avoided estate/inheritance taxes in the UK. This cannot be the reason for KCS to do this as there is no estate tax in the UK. Other people open accounts in Panama to hold foreign currency so as to diversify their holdings. Obviously, cannot be the reason for KCS either, as opening a foreign denominated currency is easy in Singapore. Other people do it for outright income tax evasion, but once again the tax rate in SIngapore is so low, its not worth it. That is why so many Billionaires are here, due to the low income taxes. that leaves really the big reason for his anonymity, which is he is hiding fraud/corruption/bribe money. And the money is so great that he does not want his relatives to know about it. he is doing side deals and taking money on the side so much so that his connected relatives might be unaware of it. Or at least to the extend that he was doing it.

In particular, his high level involvement with govt defence procuring agency like DSTA and ST Engineering is ripe for graft. Doesn't take much to hold a hand out and ask any interested parties bidding on MINDEF contracts for kopi money. Bottom line was that there was absolutely no need for him t go to Panama..................unless he has something to hide. More examples of PAP corruption, and nepotism? ABsolutely YES. Just my 2 cents.

Panama Papers leak exposes a Kwa Chong Seng
By The Independent -
May 11, 2016

Among the Singapore-based entities, officers, intermediaries and addresses released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) is the name Kwa Chong Seng.
kwa chong seng
link: https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/13002688

The Panama Papers reveal its Mr Kwa to be a beneficiary of Temburaya Limited, and the registered address is indicated as 19 Victoria Park Road Singapore 299648.

Links to kcs

According to Google Maps this is what 19 Victoria Park Road looks like.
20160511_235829

It has not been established if the Kwa Chong Seng mentioned in the Panama Papers leak is the same person who is the Executive Chairman at Olam International.

The Mr Kwa who is the Executive Chairman of Olam served as as deputy chairman of Temasek Holdings from 1997 to 2012. He is also the chairman of the Boards of Neptune Orient Lines, Singapore Technologies Engineering and Fullerton Fund Management Co.

The Executive Chairman of Olam also sits on the board of the Singapore Exchange and the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), and is also deputy chairman of the Singapore Public Service Commission.

Singapore-Window in an article dated 10 Feb 2012 (link: http://www.singapore-window.org/sw02/020210gl.htm), claims that the Mr Kwa who is the Executive Chairman of Olam is a nephew of Madam Kwa Gek Choo, the wife of Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

ICIJ said that it was releasing the new details in “public interest”, in an effort to “find out who’s behind almost 320,000 offshore companies and trusts from the Panama Papers and the offshore leaks investigations.”

In April 2016, Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, become the first major casualty of the Panama Papers leak. He resigned from his office amid mounting public outrage that his family had sheltered money offshore.

Just days after the Panama Papers toppled Iceland’s prime minister, the British premier, David Cameron, faced career-threatening accusations of financial impropriety. The Panama Papers leak exposed the British Prime Minister’s late father’s offshore fund. Mr Cameron admitted that he had owned shares in the trust, after several days of dodging questions about what interests he had in it.

There were no suggestions that Cameron or his father Ian broke the law.

Ministry of Finance and Monetary Authority of Singapore’s spokesmen commenting on the new Panama Papers leak implicating Singapore based entities and people said: “We are reviewing the batch of information that was released this morning on the persons and entities identified in the Panama Papers. If there is evidence of wrong-doing by any individual or entity in Singapore, we will not hesitate to take firm supervisory and enforcement action.”

Ravi issued a very stern statement when this PAnama papers case broke. Now that he found out one of the account holders is PM Gay Loong's own cousin, I expect him to be very very quiet from now on.

Kwa is an very important agent to Singapore powerful elite members

There is absolutely nothing wrong with minimising tax liabilities. Every strata of society does it.

gingerlyn said:

Kwa is an very important agent to Singapore powerful elite members

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Secret agent to the Elites, any names?

gingerlyn said:

Kwa is an very important agent to Singapore powerful elite members

Click to expand...

KCS is not the bag man.