The cycle continued until TGL was unable to sell new contracts and the business broke down.
The prosecutors told District Judge Ng Peng Hong that Maitland and How had profited handsomely from the fraudulent gold buyback business.The DPPs said:"The more gold buyback contracts TGL sold, the more the accused persons earned...it is because of such personal greed that the accused persons continued with TGL's operations, despite the overwhelming evidence that they knew there was no profit generating formula.
During the trial, the pair had claimed that they were unaware that TGL was operating a financially unsustainable business. Maitland and How had claimed that they did not know how this formula worked but left it entirely to Wong to run.