Businessman David Yong has been denied his application to travel overseas to Seoul and Kuala Lumpur for the third time, after a judge found him to be a “serious flight risk”.
On March 20, District Judge Brenda Tan said she had previously rejected his application on Feb 19, as the issue of his Cambodian passport remained unresolved. His first application was rejected in Aug 30, 2024.
It was earlier revealed in court that Yong, 37, who is facing charges of falsifying accounts, possessed a Cambodian passport under the name “Duong Dara” that he claimed to have surrendered to the Cambodian authorities in June 2024.
Judge Tan said she is again rejecting his application to leave jurisdiction, as there was still no official confirmation on the whereabouts of his Cambodian passport.
Yong’s bail quantum, which had been set at $1 million, will also remain, as there have been no material changes that warrant a reduction, the judge added.
Yong, the chief executive of Evergreen Group Holdings, had applied to visit Seoul and Malaysia from March 21 to April 2 for business. His lawyers also applied to reduce his bail amount.
Yong, whose full name is Yong Khung Lin, was featured in the Netflix series Super Rich In Korea as one of the cast members of the “super rich”.
He was arrested on Aug 1, 2024 and charged on Aug 3, 2024 with the falsification of accounts in relation to a promissory note arrangement involving Evergreen Group Holdings. He currently faces four charges for the falsification of accounts.
On March 20, the prosecution said WhatsApp messages between Yong and an associate named “Duong” revealed that the former had been interested in obtaining a Grenada passport.
Yong had allegedly asked Duong if he could apply for other passports with his Cambodian passport sometime in March 2024. He then asked what he needed to do to obtain such a passport after his associate said Grenada, an island nation in the Caribbean, was an option.
When Yong heard that he could receive a passport through investing US$220,000 ($294,000) in real estate, he reportedly replied “so cheap” and said it was good for him to have another passport for visa-free travel.
He was later found to have explored the purchase of a US$220,000 share in the InterContinental Grenada Resort.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Theong Li Han said the WhatsApp messages indicate that Yong was still a high flight risk, as he showed he was willing and able to purchase an additional passport.
“It is an uncanny coincidence that he would have spent US$220,000, if he was in fact not interested in getting a passport. We struggle to see how his interest was only limited to property investments,” said the prosecutor.
Judge Tan said she had found it concerning that Yong had revived the conversation as recently as January 2025, a day after his phone was seized by investigators, even as his Cambodian passport issue remains unresolved.
She added that this was “highly suggestive” of Yong’s intentions to seek citizenship elsewhere.
Yong maintains that he was interested in the Grenada property only as an investment.
His lawyer, Ms Melanie Ho from WongPartnership, said earlier applications to allow Yong to travel overseas were denied, as he was found to have a Cambodian passport.
She pointed out that the firm had since contacted Cambodia’s Administrative Office of Nationality Department to obtain evidence that Yong’s passport had been returned to the Cambodian authorities.
“Our position is that this is conclusive evidence. I am submitting today that you can disregard that; it is no longer a live issue,” Ms Ho said of the questions surrounding Yong’s Cambodian passport.
She added that the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) said it had written to the Cambodian authorities through Interpol on 10 occasions without getting any responses.
“It looks like they are very active but it is meaningless. If you wrote 10 times to someone and they don’t respond, with all due respect, you should be trying something else,” Ms Ho said.
In response, DPP Theong said that while the defence has suggested CAD could be doing more, the agency’s investigative powers have to be exercised through proper means.
“(CAD) cannot unilaterally encroach into Cambodia authorities’ jurisdiction on their own accord... There still has not been any official confirmation from Cambodian authorities,” the prosecutor said.
Ms Ho had said in her submissions that the prosecution had moved the proverbial goalposts in assessing Yong’s flight risk, after her firm submitted evidence to show Yong’s Cambodia passport was in the hands of the authorities there.
She said the prosecution had raised concerns about Yong’s alleged interest in obtaining a Grenada passport at the 11th hour on March 5, which was simply to act as a roadblock to prevent him from travelling.
In response, DPP Theong said investigations are an ongoing process and the messages between Yong and Duong were not known to both investigators and the prosecution at the Feb 19 hearing.
“The defence has not been able to point to anything concrete to support their wholly inappropriate insinuation that the prosecution had been aware of the messages and hid them to place a roadblock at a later junction to prevent him from travelling,” she said.
She also added that Yong has been denied leave to travel as a result of his own doing.
“His flight risk clearly cannot be said to be low. We have not moved the goalpost. The playing field has changed entirely from his own conduct,” she said.
For each count of falsification of accounts, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
