Allan Goh: The MYAirline owner who allegedly conned Malaysians out of millions

Why, hello there– what can we get you? Juice, coffee or some piping hot tea? Ah yes, tea it is. On the off chance you’ve been camping deep in the hutan these past few days and missed the news, MYAirline, the budget airline we all thought was gonna give AirAsia a run for their money, pretty much just nosedived out of the scene.

On October 12th, passengers arrived bright and early for their scheduled flights, only for there to be no sign whatsoever of staff and crew. Hours and hours of waiting later, MYAirline finally came out with an update:

The gist of it is that they’re flat out broke. Business Times reported that a potential investor had pulled out at the very last minute and that turned out to be the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back. But with no signs or rumours hinting at MYAirline’s struggles prior to this, honestly, who would’ve thought?!

Ok, so someone thought. And they thought it a whole 9 months back 🙃 But what’s all this stuff about the founder being a scam artist? Was this all planned? Just what the heck is going on?!

Well, like any other mystery out there, the deal is to start at the beginning, and the first thing we did was purchase the company’s SSM data. Lo and behold…

A single person owns MYAirline through a couple of companies

A quick Google search revealed that Allan Goh Hwan Hua is both the co-founder and owner of MYAirline. Now, looking at the list of shareholders we got from the SSM report, right off the bat, you’ll notice that Trillion Cove and Zillion Wealth have the biggest stakes in the company. Allan Goh himself, owns just a measly 0.9%. It’s not much…

…but what if we told you both Trillion Cove and Zillion Wealth belong to Allan Goh? Because that would raise his 0.9% stake to a whopping 65%, which makes him resoundingly, the largest shareholder. And what’s more, both he and his 26-year-old son are on the board of directors at MYAirline.

It’s also worth noting that Jothi Prakash, another director on this list, so happens to be a director at Trillion Cove as well. The other bigwigs here include Azharuddin, the former DG of the Malaysian Civil Aviation Department (CAAM) and Abdul Hamid, the former Chief Operations Officer of the Malaysia Aiports Holding Berhad (MAHB).

At a glance though, this whole thing, at worst, may just stink of nepotism. After all, there’s nothing wrong with helming multiple companies that helm other companies. But issue now is that apart from owning MYAirline, Trillion Cove, Zillion Wealth and a dozen other companies…

Allan Goh has a string of money laundering schemes to his name

Some of you might be familiar with i-Serve Online Mall, that platform where you could buy and do tech-related stuff, like bill payments. Well, here’s the scoop: for over 3 years, they were accepting people’s deposits without a proper license. By the time they were caught in 2021, they had already amassed a total of RM118.5 million! It took another 2 more years for the authorities to find them guilty, but the damage was done and some of their victims never financially recovered.

Now, take your golden guess as to who owns i-Serve.

Jeng jeng jeng, that’s right– Allan Goh. (But also his wife, oh the nepotism just keeps nepotising)

Fast forward to May this year, Madani Sahari, the former CEO of Malaysia Automotive Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) was accused of pocketing some RM19,000 worth of illegal payments from Trillion Cove, among other things. Now remember, Trillion Cove is Allan Goh’s company. It’s alleged that this money came from the purchase of shares– i.e. money that belongs to other people, so the same MO, basically. The case is still ongoing, but as it stands right now, Madani has pleaded not guilty.

Well, guilty or not, we can say the whole thing doesn’t bode well for Allan Goh or his airline. If anything, this whole fiasco has revealed that…

MYAirline was more turbulent than we were led to believe

In the days and weeks leading up to their shut down, in hindsight, it’s plane to see that things were falling apart at MYAirline. Flight delays dragged over 8 hours long, and it’s come to light that employees weren’t being paid properly since May. To make things worse, less than a day before they announced the suspension of their operations, MYAirline ran a promotion for flights at reduced prices! Honestly guys, it just doesn’t make sense 😩

Things have even come to a point where people are questioning how MYAirline received their operating license in the first place, considering their ‘dubious financial background’. As of today, their license has been temporarily suspended, and while it’s commendable that quick action was taken, it does raise questions about the thoroughness of the vetting process.

And by that, what we mean to say is, was this a case of negligence? Or is there something more sinister underfoot where  favours have been granted through connections…? Either way, it implies that more than one person should be held accountable for what’s happening right now. Supposedly MYAirline had received the all-clear to continue operating for the next 2 years, and to get that approval, they must have financial strength. We now know that they don’t.

To end on a positive note, it seems the police are set on getting to the bottom of this. They’ve reportedly arrested Allan Goh, his wife and his son under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.