Businessman charged with misappropriation

MALAYSIAN: businessman and popular owner of the Goroka Bintangor Lahanis rugby league team Simon Sia has been charged with misappropriating K5.9 million from the Konkua Coffee Development Agency in Eastern Highlands.
National Fraud and Anti-Corruption director Mathew Damaru said the Asia Pacific Investment owner from Sarawak was charged with two counts of money laundering for allegedly misappropriating money that was intended for buying building materials for the agency.
Damaru said yesterday that the agency had raised respective cheques for K1.455 million and K4.5 million and paid Asia Pacific Investment trading as Bintangor and Gold Bell Construction Ltd. Bintangor and Gold Bell Construction are subsidiaries of Asia Pacific Investment.
The payment of the money to Gold Bell Construction was for the supply of necessary materials and chemical to build a new coffee factory in Konkua village. However, police claimed that the funds were misused.
Damaru said the agency’s deputy director had laid the complaint which resulted in Sia‘s arrest at Jackson Airport in Port Moresby on his arrival for business on Monday.
He was then taken to the fraud headquarters in Konedobu and charged before his lawyer.
Sia confirmed the arrest and charges at a press conference in Goroka yesterday
He is out on K5,000 police bail.
“I am now prepared to face the charges with concrete documental evidence.
“I will vigorously defend myself in the court of law, I strongly call on my supporters, people of Eastern Highlands province and the general public to remain calm and give me moral support,” he said.
He said the same matter was dealt with by the National Court in a civil proceeding in 2017 when the court found that Konkua Coffee Development Corporation was a paper company with no legal standing in doing business under business laws and dismissed the case.
Sia said Justice Ambeng Kandakasi had presided over the matter.