Singapore jails businessman who tried to buy Newcastle United in 2020

A former director of Novena Global Healthcare Group (NGHG) was on Friday jailed for 15 years and nine months.

Nelson Loh Ne-Loon was found guilty on nine charges – four for cheating, three for money laundering and two for forgery. A total of 60 other similar charges were also considered in the sentencing.

Loh previously made the news in 2020 when he became part of a trio of investors looking to buy English Premier League club Newcastle United. A deal never materialised.

A former employee of the healthcare group who worked closely with Loh – Michael Wong Soon Yuh – was found guilty of five charges, including cheating, the police said on Friday.

He was sentenced to eight years and six months in jail.

The two Singaporeans, now both aged 45, left the country in early September 2020. They had travelled to China on a private charter flight, court documents showed.

But soon after their departure, police received a report that signatures of accounting firm Ernst & Young had been forged on some of NGHG’s financial statements.

Warrants of arrest and Interpol red notices were issued against the men, and they were detained in Shanghai in November 2022.

Singapore police said that the pair returned in December 2022 with the cooperation and help of their counterparts in China. They have been in remand since their return.

Loh and Wong had forged and submitted audited financial statements of NGHG, Giron and a subsidiary of NGHG known as Novena Global Healthcare Pte Ltd between July and November 2019.

The men then used those statements to obtain bank loans amounting to about S$68 million (US$51.6 million), the police said on Friday.

Court documents showed that Loh and Wong fraudulently obtained loans from six banks – Maybank, Standard Chartered