Blood Lust (18 page)

Of course the absence of a body makes a
murder difficult to prove, but a body is not absolutely essential to prove a
murder, providing there is strong circumstantial evidence to explain the
disappearance of a person presumed to have been murdered. Decomposed bodies can
be sometimes identified from dental work, and in other ways. Nevertheless, the
chances of a murderer escaping justice are stronger if there is no body, and
knowing this, the plotters went, shortly before the murders, to Changi to
inspect a suitable disposal area. They went in the dark and their car broke
down. They never went back to make sure there was a deep well in the vicinity.
The Solicitor-General was perhaps right in using the word, ‘irresponsible’, for
the very success of the entire operation depended entirely upon the corpses not
being found for some time, if at all, as Andrew Chou and the others were
quickly to discover. Within a matter of hours after the police found the
bodies, they had all been arrested, and Augustine Ang soon decided that his
only chance of living was to confess all he knew, thus incriminating his close
and intimate friend, Andrew Chou, his confession helping to send Andrew to the
gallows. It was inevitable someone would squeal once the bodies were found:
Augustine was chosen to be the traitor because, after all, he was one of the
principal plotters, and his English was better. He was the best speaker among
them.

None of this would have been necessary—there
might never have been a trial, had the bodies been thoroughly disposed of; yet
planning this side of the crime had received the least attention although
sufficient gangsters had been recruited to throw away the bodies. Nobody had
bothered much about where and how the bodies were to be thrown away. Had this
been done, the Chou brothers and the other seven murderers might still be
alive, and the gold bars melted down.

There is just one other thought. Did the
Chou brothers and Augustine Ang scheme to put the blame on the gangsters they
recruited to throw away the bodies? This was the suggestion put forward by a
counsel on behalf of the boys. He said the plan was for the three older men to
strangle Ngo and his two assistants, and then to implicate the boys, to use
them as stooges. Counsel never explained how he thought the Chou brothers
intended to do this. Such a scheme, if in fact it existed, would of course have
depended upon the Chou brothers and Augustine Ang remaining free and united.
The prompt discovery of the bodies and the rapid arrest of all nine, followed by
Augustine Ang’s decision to tell all to save his neck, ruined immediately any
scheme the principal plotters may have had in mind to blame the boys. Suddenly
everyone was fighting for his own life; personal loyalties disappeared.
Everyone was prepared to blame everybody else. Only the Chou brothers supported
each other. They had no alternative.

Gold
stopped being the basis
for international money when
President Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods system in 1971. The system had been
operating since 1945 when 44 nations meeting in Bretton Woods, in America,
agreed upon international monetary cooperation. Then the dollar was backed by
gold. Singapore’s Finance Minister, Hon Sui Sen, during a speech in 1980 to
world bankers meeting in the Republic, recalled that the world was then told
that gold was no longer important—that the system was flawed because of gold.
Hon asked: “Were we justified in phasing out the monetary role of gold? The
non-monetary role in future for gold is now legally enshrined in the Articles
of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund. It is legitimate to question
the wisdom of the IMF in supporting the demonetisation of gold. Opposed to
those doing everything possible to phase out gold’s role in the monetary
system, there are now some beginning to be convinced of the need for retaining
it. The recent upsurge in the gold price to a peak of twenty times the last
‘official’ price of US$42.2 per ounce, clearly demonstrated that gold still has
a wide following. Demand came not only from private sources, but, it is
understood, also from official sources, notwithstanding the official
lip-service to gold demonetisation.”

Hon went on to say that a return to a
modified gold standard, or a gold exchange standard would be facilitated
perhaps if current gold prices could be taken as official prices somewhat along
the method of valuation in the European Monetary System. “I recognize that this
is not the most fashionable or orthodox view on gold and its role in the monetary
arena at the moment. I am also aware that there are political and other
difficulties in going back to gold. But a trend was set by the demonstration of
belief in gold in the European Monetary System.” The Finance Minister believed
this was an element of great strength in the EMS. “Given time to eliminate
technical problems of operating the system it would not be surprising to find
the EMS growing in influence. If the European Currency Unit is allowed to
evolve and develop in usage so that it can be freely transacted in
international markets, it may well end the financial world’s search for an
alternative to the dollar.”

Hon was sure that on a national basis,
countries which had built up their gold holdings were better able to meet
present-day political and economic problems and other uncertainties. “The
discipline of gold is salutory, especially for governments.” The man in the
street had refused to accept the propaganda that gold should be demonetised. In
this part of the world the value of gold as money was vividly demonstrated by
the experience of the Vietnamese boat people. Without gold they could not have
escaped their unhappy lot in Vietnam. So, in those countries where governments
show a disinclination to persevere with stabilisation policies, there should be
no surprise if the man in the street turns away from paper currencies—‘to that
much abused barbarous relic, gold’. Perhaps, added the Minister, what was
surprising ‘is that when the Bretton Woods system was cast aside, so many
believed that gold no longer mattered’. The high price of gold in 1979 proved
this to be untrue.

In 1980, Singapore was doing a brisk trade
in gold. In the first quarter of the year, gold worth more than US$400 million
was sold. This was nearly double the nett amount of gold imported by Singapore
in 1979. That year, the Republic imported sixty-five tons of gold (nearly 4 per
cent of the worldwide market). Most of it was re-exported to Indonesia, but 13
tons were believed to be held in Singapore vaults. In 1979, Singapore was the
sixth largest importer of gold in the world bullion market. The USA headed the
list with 265 tons, followed by Italy, 240 tons, West Germany, 160 tons, Japan,
110 tons, Hong Kong, 100 tons, and Singapore, 100 tons. The world total was
1,835 tons.

South Africa produced 703 tonnes in 1979
(about the same as in 1978). Altogether the free world is thought to have
produced 980 tonnes of gold in 1979 compared with 969 tonnes in 1978. Nett
communist sales in 1978 were 229 tonnes. In 1979, the figure was 225 tonnes.
Total supplies of gold to the market (including sales by the US Treasury and
the International Monetary Fund) were estimated at 1,765 tonnes compared to
1,752 tonnes in 1978.

It is thought that between 850 and 900 tons
of gold were used in 1979 to make jewellery (1,001 tonnes in 1978).

In 1977 and 1978, about 22–25 per cent of
total gold supply was absorbed by investors in the form of physical gold (gold
bars and coins). In 1979, the figure was estimated to be 36 per cent.

Investors sought gold mainly for the
following three reasons:

·
  
to hedge against economic and political stability;

·
  
to diversify assets held in dollars or other vehicles prone to
depreciation in real terms; and

·
  
to increase the ratio of gold to other assets held in investment
portfolios in an effort to benefit from the contra-cyclical price behaviour of
gold in contrast to other investment assets.

It is interesting to note that in 1979, the
price of gold appreciated in terms of all the major currencies.

It is believed that 330 tons of gold were
purchased by world investors in bullion form in 1979. The Krugerrand remained
the main gold coin sold in world markets in 1979.

Total gold used in the production of
Krugerrands and R2 coins amounted to 145 tonnes during 1979. The British
sovereign absorbed about 50 tonnes, the Canadian Maple Leaf, about 15 tonnes of
gold, the Mexican Peso, about 15 tonnes, the Russian Chervonetz, about 25
tonnes and the Australian Corona, five tonnes of gold. In total, it is
estimated that some 285 tonnes of gold were used to fabricate official gold
coins in 1979, ten per cent more than was used in 1978.

Gold is now traded on a 24-hour basis around
the world.

It is expected that South African mines will
produce 20,000 tonnes of gold in the next 50 years.

WORLD SUPPLY AND DEMAND (1979)

CENTRAL BANK GOLD RESERVES (SEPTEMBER 1979)

There are two ways of
looking at this tragic story of the savage murder of the lovely sensual beauty
queen, Jean SinnappA.

There is the love angle, generated
partly by torrid love letters (some described in Court as being obscene), and
partly by Jean’s own frank attitude towards sex.