This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 25, 2025 - August 31, 2025
IN a major enforcement action, three officers with the Royal Malaysia Police’s Anti-Money Laundering (AMLA) unit have been placed on the board of directors of Hemat Tuah Sdn Bhd, which wholly owns Mutiara Metropolis Sdn Bhd (MMSB), the developer of the RM10 billion Penang World City (PWC) project.
Hemat Tuah took over the project in 2018 from a joint venture (JV) between Ivory Properties Group Bhd (KL:IVORY) and Tropicana Corp Bhd (KL:TROP).
Sources familiar with the PWC project described the move as a strategic initiative to preserve assets that could have been amassed with the proceeds of the beleaguered pyramid scheme known as MBI (Mobility Beyond Imagination). This is on account of the link between the major shareholders of Hemat Tuah and MBI’s founder Tedy Teow Wooi Huat.
“The presence of the three police officers from the AMLA unit on the board of Hemat Tuah effectively curtails the powers of the existing board from making any decisions or transactions regarding the company’s assets. This is likely to be the situation until the police complete their investigations into the links between the owners of Hemat Tuah and MBI. The thrust of the investigations is the source of funds of the shareholders of Hemat Tuah when they took over the project in 2018,” says one of the sources.
A recent Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) report shows that three police officers from the AMLA unit, namely Mohd Faizal Mohd Atan, Hamizan Ismail and Tan Kah Kok, are on Hemat Tuah’s board of directors. According to a July 23 filing with SSM, they were appointed to the board on May 19, 2025, bringing the total number of directors to six.
The other three directors are Datuk Ooi Chin Loo, Tengku Soraya Muhd Yusof Shah and Tang Tiam Hok.
The move should not come as a surprise considering that Hemat Tuah, which via MMSB indirectly holds the right to develop the 102.56-acre prime freehold land in Bayan Mutiara, has shareholders who are related to the founder of MBI.
Tedy’s brother, Teow Wooi Pin, 63, has a 45% stake in Hemat Tuah while his brother-in-law, Tan Kim Hee, 61, has 15%. The other shareholders are Lim Ah Chay (20%), Lio Chee Yeong (10%) and Koh Tech Ong (10%).
Hemat Tuah has a paid-up capital of RM13.8 million.
The value of the PWC development is said to be a staggering RM10 billion due to its relatively high plot ratio. During a privatisation exercise in 2011, it was easily one of the costliest sales by tender undertaken by the Penang Development Corporation (PDC).
Following an open tender, the land was awarded to Ivory Properties, which later roped in Tropicana Corp as a partner. Their JV company was known as Tropicana Ivory Sdn Bhd, which was sold to Hemat Tuah in 2018. Tropicana Ivory was then renamed Mutiara Metropolis Sdn Bhd (MMSB).
Tedy is currently under detention in China for running MBI, a fraudulent get-rich-quick scheme based on unauthorised digital coins known as M-Coins. The scheme started in Penang in 2012 and collapsed in 2018.
In 2017, Bank Negara Malaysia led a multi-agency raid on the company for its dealings with the unauthorised coins. The pyramid scheme had attracted hundreds of investors from as far away as China and brought in millions of ringgit that is largely unaccounted for.
“Until today, nobody can put a finger on how much MBI collected. But what is widely known is that a considerable sum of the money was spent on real estate in Penang, Kedah and other parts of the country. In his heyday, property developers used to wait outside Tedy’s office in Penang with proposals,” says a property developer.
Tedy continued to run MBI from Danok, Thailand, until his arrest in 2022. He was extradited to China in August 2024.
The Malaysian police started picking up people in relation to their investigations into MBI in April this year. The move is said to have come about following pressure from China to take action to recover whatever possible from the MBI scheme. The investigations subsequently led to having the three police officers from the AMLA unit on the board of Hemat Tuah.
Money laundering and terrorism financing in Malaysia are offences under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001, which grants wide-ranging powers to the authorities. It empowers them to take over companies, seize assets and auction them if the need arises.
The Act even allows the authorities to appoint an administrator to take over a company’s daily operations and management, freeze its bank accounts, prohibit the directors from selling its assets and eventually auction off the properties.
A former political stalwart and lawmaker remarks that the appointment of the police officers from the AMLA unit as Hemat Tuah directors is not unprecedented. “However, it is not common for AMLA to move into companies that have taken over projects previously tendered out by a state government.”
He believes that the AMLA unit probably wanted to impose a caveat on Hemat Tuah or MMSB’s land but could not do so because some parcels have yet to be reclaimed and do not have titles. The PWC project is located in areas that are still under water and need to be reclaimed.
“You can’t impose a caveat if there’s no land title yet, as some of the land is still being reclaimed. Therefore, AMLA needed to place their people on the board of the company instead,” he says.
At a recent press conference, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow stated that the police probe on PDC was to determine whether any funds paid by MMSB to the state-owned corporation between 2011 and 2019 were derived from MBI. Chow had previously asserted that PDC followed standard procedures in the Bayan Mutiara land sale and had no direct dealings with MBI.
It is learnt that when Hemat Tuah took over the Ivory Properties-Tropicana Corp JV in 2018, it was required to pay a substantial sum of money to the authorities for consent. “The source of Hemat Tuah’s [and MMSB’s] funds are central to the police investigations,” says a source.
The PWC project envisaged transforming Bayan Mutiara, near the Penang Bridge, into a glittering RM10 billion development fronting the sea. Some 35 acres out of the 102.56 acres needs to be reclaimed from the sea. The plans featured high-rise homes, hotel towers, retail complexes and corporate offices centred on an open-air mall, with a target completion date of 2020.
After winning the mandate for the PWC project, Ivory Properties was hailed as Penang’s largest developer. The launch of Tropicana Bay Residences in 2013 marked Tropicana Ivory’s first major project, featuring eight residential towers and generating significant interest from buyers.
Subsequent transactions saw property developer Asia Green Group acquire three development parcels from Tropicana Ivory. Asia Green has delivered two completed projects, with a third still in the planning stage.
However, the project’s ambitious reclamation component — initially scheduled for 2014 — was mired in delays. Technical complications pushed the RM200 million earthworks to mid-2017, with completion expected to take three to five years.
By 2018, both Ivory Properties and Tropicana Corp had sold their stakes in Tropicana Ivory to Hemat Tuah. Tropicana Corp divested its 55% shareholding to Hemat Tuah for RM70.7 million, while Ivory Properties disposed of its 45% stake for RM56 million a few months later.
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