Ng allegedly involved in bribery case, ex-UN General Assembly arrested held

A federal investigation has begun regarding allegations that Ng Lap Seng bribed U.N. officials. The allegations are part of a larger investigation into bribery by Chinese individuals. Under the investigation, former United Nations General Assembly President John Ashe was arrested.
Mr Ashe is being accused of accepting more than USD1 million in bribes from Ng Lap Seng and other businesspeople. Prosecutors say Ashe accepted payoffs from developer Ng and an associate to help convince the international body to build a multibillion-dollar conference center in Macau.
In a separate scheme, Ashe took bribes to promote Chinese business in Antigua. Ashe also served as the Caribbean country’s representative to the UN. As part of the alleged scheme, the promoters paid to have Antigua’s prime minister flown to the U.S. to accept an award, prosecutors said.
The investigation is being led by the office of Preet Bharara, a U.S. attorney based in Manhattan, along with the FBI.
Ng Lap Seng, who also goes by the name David Ng, is the chairman of the Sun Kian Ip Group, a privately held company largely based in Macau (where it is building the large-scale residential development Windsor Arch) that has a foundation arm in New York City. Mr Ng is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as well as a member of Macau’s Economic Development Committee. According to Bloomberg, he has a personal net worth of about USD1.8 billion.
Both individually and through his foundation (the Sun Kian Ip Group Foundation), Ng Lap Seng has worked with the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, an official arm of the U.N. that focuses   on partnerships among developing countries.
In August, the U.N. department sponsored a forum on “South-South Cooperation for Sustainable Development” in Macau. More than 200 delegates from 50 countries took part in the event, where the majority argued for the creation of a permanent south-south office in Macau.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, public documents, property records and website domain records “show a network of connections between Mr Ng’s foundation and other organizations focused on the developing world as well as the U.N.” It also revealed that based on a search of public records, Mr Ng’s foundation is not registered with major foundation databases, nor does it appear to have public tax filings.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Ng, said that his team’s legal stance is that his client has “committed no crime”. Another lawyer for Ng, Kevin Tung, claimed last week that he was not aware of any connection between Mr Ng’s current case and the U.N.
Ng, a 68-year-old Macau real estate developer and billionaire, was detained in New York in September after he failed to comply with U.S. prosecutors in their questions pertaining to an overseas bribery investigation.
He has been held, along with his assistant Jeff C. Yin, in a Manhattan federal jail since their arrest on Sept. 19 on suspicion of lying about the intentions of using the USD4.5 million brought into the U.S. between July 2013 and September 2015. Ng declared that the money was for buying art, antiques or real estate, or would be used for gambling. Ng and his assistant have each been charged with one count of conspiracy.
Ng’s name came to light earlier this year as part of a lawsuit against Sheldon Adelson, the 82-year-old billionaire and chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Adelson claimed not to know Ng, and to have had no dealings with him. MDT/Agencies

UN connections deleted on website

The Sun Kian Ip Group Foundation website was established in August. Last week, the WSJ contacted the person whose email account registered Ng Lap Seng’s foundation’s website and asked about the arrest. After the contact was made, the website began to erase text, contact information and photographs of foundation events featuring U.N. officials. The website designer Christian Batres told the WSJ he had taken pages down while “all this stuff is going on” because he hadn’t communicated with Mr Ng about the best way to proceed.

Ng’s would be legacy: a UN center in Macau

According to court documents, Ashe used his position to push the U.N. to promote a conference center in Macau being developed by Ng. The UN Macau Conference Center was to be Ng’s legacy and would function as a sort of satellite operation for the world body, according to prosecutors. Some of the bribe money was allegedly used to pay for Ashe’s family vacation and to construct a basketball court at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He opened two bank accounts to receive the funds and then underreported his income by more than USD1.2 million, officials said. The businesspeople flew Ashe, his wife and their two children first-class to New Orleans and put the family up in an $850-a-night hotel room. In all, six people, including another diplomat, Francis Lorenzo from the Dominican Republic, were ensnared in the probe.