Nigel Grier Exposed

This detailed data on what happened is from a blog by the victims.

click here Nigel Grier Exposed

If you have been a victim, or know someone who has, please contact the Singapore police:

iWitness-Form This is a link to the police if you wish to remain anonymous

Police Report

If you have any evidence of tax evasion please contact IFD (IRAS) [email protected]

Also, contact the Singapore Prime Minister’s office to report Grier’s use of the image of Lee Hsien Loong.

Sock Leng CHEW
Prime Minister’s Office [email protected]

Nigel Grier recently published a piece on his LinkedIn page, related to investment projects that he organized, operated and financed by raising funds from investors in Singapore and beyond. He claims that embittered investors, upset about the loss, are looking to defame him. There is however a glaring omission in his write-up – he conspicuously avoids all discussion of money. Financial crime is about money, and this case is no different. Nigel and his wife Fiona are not the victims they make out to be – they are the perpetrators.

Big Claims — Few Details

Nigel spends a lot of ink on peripheral matters, and as in previous instances, makes grand-sounding, self-glorifying (and mostly false) statements but does not address the key issue. He does not discuss how much money he raised, for which projects, and most importantly where it all went. He puts a positive spin on what was a small-scale, low-tech and trash-sorting operation in Bali, but he does not address the elephant in the room. As we now know, Nigel raised US$1.5m for three projects: US$600k for the Bali project, US$600k for the Lombok project and US$300k for the Karen project in Burma. Although a few old containers were purchased and during a brief period two dozen blue collar workers indeed sorted trash in Bali, he provided no evidence of how much of the 600k raised for that project was actually spent there (people on the ground claim no more than a few dozen thousand dollars). No activity took place in Lombok and in Myanmar at all. These projects were entirely independent from the one in Bali, with independent funding and corporate structures – but the funds also went missing while nothing was done.

The Money Trail

After a three-year long legal process, investors obtained evidence that of the US$1.5m raised by Nigel during 2016-2019, over half went to Nigel and his wife Fiona personally. Bank account statements were obtained after a long legal battle filed by 13 investors in the High Court of Singapore – one of the “frivolous lawsuits” in which Nigel supposedly prevailed. Prior to that, Nigel prevented his investors from obtaining financial records on multiple occasions. His companies had never made the compulsory annual return filing with the company registrar in Singapore (ACRA). Repeated promises of delivering such company accounts were broken. Finally, Nigel found a dishonest liquidator who he tasked with closing the matter quietly while obstructing all attempts to obtain information by creditors. Nigel tried very hard to obstruct access to financial information about his projects, and that in itself was a tell-sign before hard evidence emerged.

Everything Goes to the Mother Company

Nigel and Fiona raised funds for “Net-Zero projects” in Bali & Lombok, into dedicated project companies, but after arriving at the bank accounts of the project companies, the funds were immediately remitted to the parent company’s bank account, that the Griers used as their own wallet. This meant that the project companies were left with no cash, no assets but only debt. They were setup to fail from day one. When subsequently, formally questioned about spending lavishly from the parent company, Nigel didn’t so much as deny it, but rather claimed that he and Fiona had the right to do so. Upon the request of the (new) liquidator, he provided employment contracts showing salaries of US$10,000/month for himself and SGD 10,000/month for Fiona. In addition these contracts would cover any “reasonable” expenses. Nigel and Fiona signed these generous contracts with themselves. These were almost certainly produced after the fact and backdated to 2013. The fact that no mandatory CPF (Central Provident Fund Board in Singapore) contributions were paid on these salaries, further shows that the sole purpose of these contracts was to try to justify the improper use of funds after the fact.

No Revenues

Nigel proudly claims that his company “delivered multiple active contracts with global brands”. It appears to be true that he was able to sign a contract with two or three Alila hotels in Bali for waste management at the outset, which was the basis for him to raise funding for the project. However, the bank accounts of all the companies involved do not show any trace of revenues. The only incoming funds are investor funds, which are then moved around. At one point Nigel accounted for funds moved between his own companies as revenues, which was another clumsy cover up attempt. There were no revenues from third parties from the beginning to the end. The projects were a Ponzi scheme with no business substance.

Nigel’s Odd Friend

Nigel had one strong supporter during the liquidation, in court, and subsequently – Shiwen Yap. Shiwen contributed a SGD 20k preferential loan to the top-level company (IDPM) just before liquidation began in early 2020 – at least on paper as the money was not to be seen in the bank statements. It must be unusual to volunteer a loan to a company whose business has been dead for many months, which is about to be liquidated, with few prospects of recovering it. But the purpose was to become an official creditor and to side with the Griers while opposing genuine creditors. As we learned later, he was the one who introduced Nigel to Ruben Potter – the dishonest liquidator who tried to close the case swiftly and quietly. Nigel enlisted Shiwen to have his man among creditors. It’s interesting to note, that the same Shiwen, in a 2022 decision by a Singapore court, stands accused of pocketing US$13.6 million, while failing to deliver WeWork shares to a Korean financial institution. The court granted the injunction against Shiwen Yap, essentially validating these accusations (“the plaintiff says that it has been defrauded and its assets dissipated by a complex web of companies incorporated and controlled by Yap“). It doesn’t speak very well of the character of Nigel’s most fervent supporter. In fact, ShiWen and Nigel play a similar game of “dissipating assets through a network of companies”.

The Plan that Failed

In a nutshell, Nigel’s scheme had two stages. The first part involved raising funds for sustainability projects, running a phony operation and moving funds around, ultimately towards himself and Fiona. However in the second half of 2019 the equipment at the phony ops in Bali was seized by the hotel, existing investors for the first time started asking some hard questions, while Nigel disappeared. He was the director of three entities (of which Fiona was the sole shareholder), which had engaged in some rather questionable transactions and transfers.

The second stage consisted of covering up the criminal activity committed earlier. The creditors’ meeting unusually organized via zoom during peak covid lock-downs (with everyone unable to speak except for Nigel and Ruben), with a very “friendly” and “unapproved” liquidator was going to once and for all put an end to uncomfortable questions, while answering none of them. The plan nearly worked out, but 13 investors challenged the very unusual practices at that creditors’ meeting, in court and prevailed. This later allowed working with banks in Singapore to obtain the companies’ bank records and establishing a money trail, which shows that the majority of the raised funds went to the Griers for their spending in Singapore, Perth and Townsville. In the context of this damning evidence (that he must know we now poses), it is outrageous to read Nigel’s claims about “embittered” investors looking to “defame” him and portraying himself as a victim. It’s outrageous, but not unusual, because brazen lies are his trademark.

Forewarned is Forearmed

The issue investors have with Nigel is not that the investments failed and that they made a loss, or not even that he was incompetent. This was an act of deception from day one, aimed at creating a smokescreen operation, while walking away with the bulk of the funds. His aim was to disguise misappropriation as an ordinary business failure. According to Nigel’s communication until his disappearance, business was going jolly well, so his sudden walking away was a troubling sign. This was in May 2019, long before anyone had heard of Covid – his favorite excuse. Investors are upset because they were cheated out of their money, which went towards financing Griers’ lifestyle – funds that were intended for noble causes and the most needy. And be warned – it looks like he is trying to reestablish himself as an “experienced startup founder” who provides “capital-raising support”. Few consultants or founders are more dangerous. Once a scumbag always a scumbag.

Appendix & References

The Irish-Australian entrepreneur’s investment projects started in late 2016. That something very fishy was happening became apparent in mid-2019, but only in 2021-2022 did the bulk of the actual evidence come to light. Until the court-ordered document handover and subsequent retrieval of bank statements, there was no information available on the finances of the companies. Today, an almost complete money trial shows the funds raised for sustainability projects entering companies controlled by Nigel & Fiona, being moved around, and finally spent by them.

Fund Raising

The following article was published by Nigel’s friend ShiWen Yap, and states that Nigel raised USD $1.15m for the Bali project. As was reveled in the bank records later not more than 300 thousand were raised at that stage. This was a major lie right at the outset. Even with the best intentions and skills (both of which were lacking), this project was doomed from the start.

This is an online profile of Nigel and Fiona from that period

25^th of March 2019: Given that the project was officially fully-funded from the start, Grier used the Townsville floods as an excuse to supposedly re-sell bonds from early investors from his hometown. The problem (as later became known) was that the supposed sellers of the bonds (really, mostly one person masquerading under different companies) had never put any money into his project companies. On top of that, IDPM played the role of intermediary in some transactions, but it didn’t remit the funds to the supposed seller of the bonds – it kept them. It was an attempt to grab more money one last time knowing that the end was close, while claiming that “with majority of projects commissioned and in operation” the opportunity was “de-risked”. In reality, Nigel disappeared three months later never to be seen again and all the money was gone.

Nigel discusses the project in the Karen village of Mu Aye Pu in Myanmar in this podcast.

A video of him making an appeal for additional donations for bears in Mu Aye Pu is available here. Subsequently, Sabine who features in the video made this touching and sad post in an online forum on October 12^th 2019:

Nigel promised to take care of the 2 bear cubs in Mu Aye Pu. I have a thick work contract with IDPM: 40 hour 7 days a week for a whopping 160$ ! plus the same for the food for the animals incl. accounting. Not one Baht was paid for my work of feeding & cleaning (a 14 hour job). Nor was ever any food paid. Sign up at IDPM and experience how it is to live under the poverty line for months? he keeps promising and promising until you have shared your last spaghetti with your hungry bear cubs and lie awake hungry at night! I had to beg food from our refugee community until my 86 year old mother could transfer us some food money. I take care of 6 amazing Karen children who had no Christmas or Birthdays presents since November thanks to Nigel. Nigel own up. We are waiting. The sums you own us should be nothing for you. How much do you spend a month for your own family. Regards from Dominic, Bente, Sebastian, Elisabeth, Felix and Nicolas to your own children.

This is just one of many commitments he made and did not keep – in this case, some of the most vulnerable suffering the consequences. It’s clear that ethical and moral considerations were non-existent.

Creditors Meeting

This meeting was called by Fiona and Nigel to close the companies down. The main point on the agenda was the confirmation of current the liquidator or the election of another liquidator, who would then proceed with the liquidation. The voting is done based on the amount of debt owed, and that was to be abused by the Griers and their “friendly” liquidator.

Fiona and Nigel (as well as two friendly parties) made claims for millions of dollars, allowing them to outvote all the genuine creditors. This was submitted along with the debt claim by Fiona Grier (this does not cover unpaid salaries for which she filed a separate claim). Apart from a print out with a long list of “Batch Payments” for $570’000, there is not a single invoice or bank statement justifying these amounts. The Griers made these claims for millions of dollars supposedly owed to them by the company without any supporting documents, and their liquidator accepted – it was part of their plan. As a result they got their way and picked Ruben Potter as the liquidator for the three companies.

**“FGTL” on top of this page stands for Fiona Grier Tsui Lyn, Nigel’s wife**

ShiWen came in to support Nigel (and his pal Ruben) through one of his companies in the fight. He could later present himself as an official creditor and support Nigel’s case.

Court

During the early part of the court case, the issue of missing financial statements was raised. To this Nigel replied that he no longer had the possession or custody of the management accounts. He was suggesting that he had handed over every last soft copy to the liquidator Ruben, and was unable to help.

After the court ordered Ruben to handover the documents to the victims, it turned out that management accounts were not present, and the documents were lacking in every way. Not a single of the company’s contracts or invoices were to be found. For three years of supposedly ongoing successful business, there were almost no documents to show. When questions were raised about this and other issues (such as first signs of personal spending from company accounts, lack of revenues, no CPF contributions etc), Nigel replied that the court was not the appropriate forum for discussing transactions or business matters (he would rather have creditors discuss these with Ruben who blocked every attempt to do so).

Bank Statements and Contracts

Bank records revealed two patterns. The project companies that were raising most of the funds, would immediately remit the raised funds to another company – IDPM – controlled by Fiona Grier. This would happen on the day of receiving or within a few days. As a result the project companies always had a cash balance of around zero, despite raising around $1m. Apart from incoming investor funds and outgoing transfers to IDPM, there are no material cash movements at the project entities.

As for IDPM (the entity on the receiving end of these flows), one type of transaction featured prominently in the bank statements from 2017 to 2019 – spending on the well-being of the Grier family. Personal spending in the hundreds of thousands of dollars went towards goods and services in this list (not exhaustive in any way):

And this is a representative couple of days in the life of IDPM:

And so it went on – week after week and month after month, until the companies “failed”. Griers’ lifestyle in Singapore and later in Perth was financed with the money raised for three impact projects – two in Indonesia and one in the Karen state of Burma. In fact, when questioned about this by the new liquidator, Nigel replied with a letter in May 2022, and he didn’t in any way deny spending the company money. He simply stated that Fiona and himself had the right to spend from the company freely, as per their contracts, which granted them “all reasonable expenses” in addition to their very generous salaries.

Neither these contracts, nor any other contracts for that matter, were to be found in the documents handed over by Ruben after the court ordered him to do so in 2021 (which normally would have included all of the companies’ past documentation). These contracts were only produced by Nigel, after he was formally questioned about personal expenses, in 2022. This reinforces the impression that they were crafted after the fact to justify spending most of company funds on the Grier family. Taking most of the funds for three impact projects for himself was “legal” in his mind, because he signed a contract with his wife entitling him to do so.

This was not a legitimate business gone wrong, as Nigel claims. This was not even a sloppy job or something that started with good intentions and took a wrong turn. This was deception from day one, with no invoices, no revenues, self-enrichment and plenty of lies all along. Nerdah, the general in the Karen state who met Grier and was aware of his projects, later called Grier a professional liar. Nigel’s friendly attitude, smile and family-oriented social media posts are unfortunately all too deceiving.