Who's 'Marcus', the man who allegedly disappeared with 5 excavators, 2 welders & a wheel loader from 3 S'pore companies?

In June 2025, New Town Engineering Pte Ltd received a message from Revivify Pte Ltd, a company providing end-to-end support services for the marine and oil industries.

They wanted to rent two excavators.

This was pretty textbook stuff for New Town, who specialises in renting out construction equipment.

Some back-and-forth on price later, a fee of S$9,810 for a one-month rental (Jun. 6 to Jul. 5) of two excavators was agreed.

The payment went through without any fuss, and Revivify sent a transporter to get the two excavators.

This was all done without both parties ever directly meeting.

About a month later, someone from New Town reached out to see if Revivify wanted to extend the rental.

They did. But payment was a tad more complicated this time round.

Despite reaching out for payment a few times, there was only radio silence.

This led to their Operations & Business Development staff member, Jade Khoo, going down to Revivify's purported offices on Jul. 10.

Surprise! But make it a bad one.

This led to another unpleasant revelation.

Revivify was not there.

The people in the listed office address told Khoo that she was not the first person looking for Revivify.

Other construction rental firms

Khoo didn't know it then, but some of her colleagues in the construction rental industry had also been approached by Revivify.

Two specifically: Multi Ways Equipment Pte Ltd, and Cherly Equipment Service.

Cherly Equipment would be hit the hardest with four excavators loaned out that are still missing to this day. They were told that these were for a "large government contract" Revivify was working on.

Revivify had also been very insistent on the exact types of equipment they were after, which convinced the owner that this was a legitimate deal.

The first contact came in Apr. 29, and the final pieces of equipment were loaned out on Jun. 16.

Multi Ways loaned four pieces of equipment, including two welders (smaller, less expensive) and a week later, two wheel loaders (larger, more expensive).

The wheel loaders were loaned out on May 29.

They eventually recovered one of the wheel loaders, but were not able to locate or retrieve the two welders or the other wheel loader.

Representatives from all three companies appeared to have been subjected to different forms of payment failure, but a seemingly similar modus operandi: gaining initial trust.

For Multi Ways, there were no issues at all with the timeliness of the first rental payments for the cheaper welders. This prompt payment was followed by Revivify asking to rent the more expensive wheel loaders. With Revivify's prompt payment (remember New Town?), Multi Ways was less hesitant in renting them the two wheel loaders as well.

However, there was no payment for the wheel loader rentals.

Similarly for Cherly, the initial payment was prompt for the rental of the first few pieces of equipment. But... you know the rest.

There also appeared to be another constant in Revivify's interactions with the companies – an "expert", who seemed to know what he was talking about with regard to construction equipment.

This, naturally, made both Multi Ways and Cherly let their guard down.

Some examples of this person's expertise: being very specific with Cherly on the exact equipment he wanted, and telling Multi Ways the special equipment he needed them to install on the wheel loaders.

Enter the "expert". Enter "Marcus".

Who is "Marcus"?

All three companies were approached by "Marcus".

For two of the companies, deals were settled without ever meeting "Marcus" in person.

So while they talked to "Marcus", it was done through a combination of phone calls, voice notes, and emails.

Not for Cherly though. Their CEO was the only person who met "Marcus".

Transactions were done face-to-face, with the down payment being made in cash. "Marcus" himself made multiple trips to their workplace to rent the equipment, even talking to Cherly's CEO Tang Siang Hong in dialect.

So far, so good.

Tang, the only person to have met Marcus in real life, described "Marcus" as Singaporean (based on his accent), around 1.65m, thin, smartly dressed, tanned, with a clean short hairstyle, and quite well-spoken.

According to Tang, "Marcus" first came in a Volvo, followed by a Mercedes, and then in a BMW on his final visit.

Revivify's version of reality also appeared to change just as much as Marcus' cars.

He allegedly told Multi Ways and Cherly that the contract was for an initial year, with a possible additional year extension.

He also purportedly told them the machines were to be sent to Seletar North, that location was then changed to Penjuru Lane, where he claimed they were to be inspected.

When Multi Ways went down to Penjuru Lane to check on their equipment, they managed to speak on the phone to a man called Robin, who was allegedly the operator for the site.

Robin told them that the project was actually for five years. A far cry from the apparent one year they were told.

When asked where the machines would be sent to, Robin didn't mention Seletar North, but instead Jurong Island.

When pressed for further details, Robin apparently insisted that the deal was too lucrative to reveal any information, fearing that Multi Ways would "undercut" them. A claim Multi Ways rubbished.

All three companies have filed police reports against Revivify. Responding to queries from Mothership, the police confirmed all three reports, and said investigations are ongoing.

No such company

But let's go back to Jul. 10 with New Town.

Revivify's Recordowl listing had identified their office address at International Plaza as being a virtual office, which means a legit company rents out its address to other firms.

So we reached out to the office provider for more information. More of this later.

Khoo, too, decided to ask her colleague to call Revivify and schedule a meeting under the guise of conducting a maintenance check.

That worked, kinda.

While "Marcus" provided an address for them to conduct checks, 27 Penjuru Road, there was no excavator there. He also apparently did not reply to any messages after that.

Khoo though remembered a conversation she had with the transport company when they took their excavators away, they mentioned that the address they were going to was opposite 30 Penjuru Lane.

Here's what they saw.

The process of retrieving their own excavator would however, take them over nine hours.

On Jul. 11, Khoo and her boss attempted to liaise with an operator on the scene to get their excavators back. He refused, and called a man named Robin, purportedly the same Robin who spoke to Multi Way, to talk to Khoo and her boss.

This did not go smoothly, with Robin claiming he did not know anything about what Khoo and her boss brought up. Both parties called the police: New Town wanted their excavator back, the operator alleged that New Town was trespassing.

After almost ten hours, New Town was able to get one of their excavators back. The other excavator, which the operator had claimed was just "next door", was not recovered.

Throughout these nearly ten hours, Khoo said no one from Revivify came by.

Interestingly enough, Khoo and her boss were thinking about leaving the area, but stopped when they saw someone from Multi Ways, who explained to them why they were there as well.

That would be the first time they would have an inkling that other companies might have been embroiled in the same situation.

They also received a WhatsApp message from "Marcus" chastising them on their unprofessional conduct and "dangerous behaviour" after they had taken back their excavator.

New Town would also receive a letter of demand from Revivify on Jul. 13.

They were in good company, with Multi Ways also receiving a letter for also taking back their construction equipment.

The letter of demand was addressed from the same International Plaza address, the virtual office's address.

No office, no number, nothing

Responding to queries from Mothership, the company that rents out the virtual office said Revivify was not a client nor had they engaged their address services.

"They are using our address without authorisation, and we have already lodged a report with Acra regarding this matter."

They emphasised that they are a Registered Corporate Service Provider with Acra and it would be mandatory for them to conduct customer due diligence even if the client was taking up just a relatively small service like the Registered Address service.

They also told Mothership that they did not know the company or its directors/shareholders. Neither were they aware that their address was being used, and that no notification was sent to them, the owner of the address.

They have also filed a police report on the issue.

According to a Straits Times forum letter on Sep. 1, 2021, concerns had been raised by a homeowner who said a business owner had used her address to register his business.

She expressed her concern that a residential address could be used as a company address and that there were no "existing mechanisms to check and authenticate" that process.

In response, Acra had pointed out that companies were required to declare that the registered office address they provide to them is correct, and update changes to their registered office address promptly.

Those who provide incorrect information would be liable for a fine of up to $50,000 and/or jail of up to two years.

They also noted that over 99 per cent of companies registered with Acra provide the correct registered office address, and that they conduct inspections to verify registered addresses and investigate complaints.

Ok, so Revivify's office doesn't appear to be their office.

What about their phone number?

Mothership contacted a phone number listed on SPGrid under Revivify, but the contact number claimed they were not the Revivify we were looking for.

We tried texting "Marcus", no reply there.

Ok, no office, no number.

What about their purported "very lucrative" government contract?

Mothership has reached out to the Ministry of National Development for confirmation on whether Revivify was working on any reclamation projects.

What about the directors of Revivify?

Checks online on Jul. 17 found a sole director listed for the company. No one answered the door when Mothership went down to the listed residential address.

This was however when the staggered timings of the different alleged scams came in quite handy.

While Mothership's checks only found the name of one director, an earlier check by Multi Ways, who encountered this alleged scam earlier than New Town, on an information services company, showed the existence of one more director.

By the way, neither of these listed directors was named Marcus or Robin (who we also tried contacting to no avail).

Someone answered us

We managed to contact the purported person listed on the document.

However the person told Mothership that he had never been a director for that company, and that we had gotten the wrong person.

According to the service company's website, their primary source of information on local company search reports and individual searches is Acra and the Supreme & State Courts.

So five excavators, two welders and one wheel loader disappeared and no one seems to know anything about Revivify.

29 Penjuru Lane

There was still one rather perplexing issue.

29 Penjuru Lane. It was the last place where the rental companies had spotted their own equipment.

But it's no sleek excavator hub, it's just dirt there.

You've seen the picture earlier that Khoo took.

Here are more pictures we took on a different day. The only difference being the lack of excavators.

A bit of a strange place to be threatened with a trespassing charge.

A trespassing charge would also imply that the person threatening to pursue that charge owns the place.

Responding to queries from Mothership, JTC informed us that they had awarded the site to G-Chem Logistics via a Temporary Occupation Licence tender.

A quick check on Google shows that their company provides "integrated logistics solutions" in warehousing, fulfilment and transportation.

Here's who they serve.

And here's their list of clients, which appears to show some placeholder text.

Multiple emails to the company went unreplied, and calls to the office were met with instructions to email said unresponsive email addresses.

When Mothership went down to the office, some employees of the company said they did not know of any Robin who worked there, one of the employees also did not recognise the number that this Robin used.

So what is the point of this long story? Is it a scam?

What happened to the excavators and wheel loader?

A possible fear is that they might have been shipped off to another country already, never to be seen again.

Having so much available documentation but yet not being able to ascertain the actual folks responsible for the disappearance of the excavators feels slightly off, even more so the inability to definitively say if something was a scam or not.

The three affected companies understandably think it's a scam.

But there was an unexpected call for caution in the form of a representative of the aforementioned virtual office provider.

Having been around for over 20 years, the company, which also provides accounting, tax advisory and corporate secretarial services, wasn't surprised that their address was "stolen" by Revivify. The representative also said it was not "uncommon" to see business owners with good track record pulling the plug suddenly when unable to pay their debts.

So was it a scam from the start, or simply a company that ran into headwinds?  One could argue that the outcome matters more than intent.

That certainly seems to be the case for the rental companies, with Multi Ways telling CNA that they are placing trackers on their equipment from now on.

"There are many people that suffer (from this). It’s not good for business and it makes us very wary of our next few clients."

Khoo also told Mothership that on hindsight she should have noticed how strange Revivify's website was, especially with the overly-vague descriptors.

The companies hope that with more exposure of the story, more victims will come forward and file police reports, which they hope will prompt authorities to take swift action and prevent other companies from falling victims.

And while the victims themselves will invariably be more guarded, could more be done to protect them?

Small things like ensuring correct phone numbers on public sites that provide this kind of company information, or notifications for companies when another business is trying to register using their addresses, although issues like who exactly gets notified might come up.

In the grand scheme, those measures might not be enough to prevent a truly-devious scammer, it's a bit like removing small clumps of dust from a dumping ground. But the more unpredictability is piled on, whether ill-intentioned or not, the harder it is to dig up the actual truth of the situation.

Especially with all these missing excavators.

Image from New Town Engineering/FB and Canva