The second red flag was regulatory ambiguity. MAS later said EAM and EGT were not licensed by MAS, and that EAM had been placed on the Investor Alert List on 19 March 2020 after public feedback suggested it had told customers it was applying for a licence when no such application had been submitted. That is not a small administrative footnote. That is the sort of warning serious investors are supposed to stop and examine.
Then there were the documents. Prosecutors said Ng used forged agreements