Rise & fall of 3AC founder Su Zhu: From crypto king to arrest at Changi Airport

SINGAPORE: Once upon a time Zhu Su was on top of the world, with a net worth of over S$1 billion. However, with the collapse of the high-profile cryptocurrency hedge fund he co-founded, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), debts of over S$4 billion, and most recently, an arrest at Changi Airport, Zhu has seen a stunning reversal of fortune in just a few short years.

Zhu was arrested while he was trying to leave Singapore on Friday last week, according to Teneo, the firm appointed as the joint liquidator of 3AC after its failure. However, an Oct 5 (Thursday) report from Reuters said that police in Singapore “appeared” to confirm Zhu’s arrest, saying that a “36-year-old man” had been arrested on Sept 29 at Changi Airport, although the man was not named in the email the police sent Reuters. Nor was the matter elaborated on.

Teneo told The Business Times that Zhu was given a four-month prison sentence under a committal order due to his failure to cooperate with investigations into 3AC. Kyle Davies was given the same committal order, although the co-founder of 3AC remains at large.

Zhu, a Singaporean, and Davies, an American, founded 3AC in 2012, at the kitchen table of their apartment. The two men were working as traders at Credit Suisse at the time. At one point, their crypto assets were allegedly worth several billion dollars.

However, a court in the British Virgin Islands put the company under liquidation in June 2022, due to 3AC’s failure to pay its creditors. Furthermore, 3AC was reprimanded shortly afterwards by the Monetary Authority of Singapore because it had provided false information and breached industry licensing rules for fund management.

After the failure, Zhu sold his Bukit Timah S$48.8 million Good Class Bungalow, which he had bought only seven months before. The Bukit Timah GCB was one of three bungalows that Zhu, now 37, purchased between 2019 and 2021 for a total amount of S$83.55 million.

In addition to the three GCBs owned by Zhu and others connected to 3AC the assets also included a townhouse and a shophouse, plus a yacht and a fleet of high-end cars.

Zhu and Davies lived it up in Bali, Indonesia, in the wake of their company’s failure, The New York Times reported earlier this year.

There, Zhu spent a lot of time playing video games, “maybe like 12 hrs a day,” but eventually “started going into the ocean, surfing, taking hard walks, getting back into gym routine, reading books, learning new languages.”

/TISG

Founders of failed crypto hedge fund 3AC lived it up in Bali in wake of collapse