The name of the Japanese general who defeated the British in Malaya and Singapore during World War II has always been identified with secretly-buried hoards of gold bullion and treasures looted from South-East Asia.

For more than half a century, treasure hunters have been chasing the elusive bounty amassed by General Tomoyuki Yamashita, known as the Tiger of Malaya for his brilliant military tactics and victory over British forces. New information reveals that Gen. Yamashita was indeed involved in the movement of looted valuables to caves in mountains north of Manila in the frenetic last 10 months of the war. In a few cases, the Japanese engineers and prisoners of war working on the transfer were entombed with the riches.

It is believed treasures worth US$100 billion (S$173 billion) were hidden by the Japanese in the Philippines alone. At today's value, that would be much, much more. Over time, the hidden treasures acquired the label, "Yamashita's gold". The Americans recovered many of the valuables after the war. But these treasures were only the tip of the iceberg of trillions of dollars in gold, gems, rare art and precious metals plundered during the Japanese occupation of Asia. The looting was a deliberate policy and not a random act of theft and violence by drunken soldiers, as claimed in disinformation spread by the US and Japan.

Systematically, the Japanese stripped bare 12 Asian countries -- including Singapore, Malaya, China, Korea and the Philippines -- of valuables accumulated over thousands of years. The fresh disclosures appear in a just-released book, Gold Warriors, written by investigative journalist Sterling Seagrave and his wife Peggy. The revelations establish that:

» Expert teams with Japan's military emptied Asian treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, art galleries and pawn shops;

» The Japanese used Singapore, Penang and Kuala Lumpur as major centres for the collection and shipment of loot; Chinese-owned tin-mining factories in Malaya recast confiscated gold jewellery;

» The treasures in Asia were taken to Japan by sea and rail, with much going to the US;

» Together with treasure recovered from the Nazis, the US used the loot in a secret slush fund to fight the communists in the Cold War;

» The "black gold" gave the Americans virtually limitless unvouchered funds for covert operations, to bribe political leaders and manipulate elections in foreign countries to prevent them from falling into communists hands;

» The US wanted Japan to be its anti-communist bastion in Asia, so it allowed Tokyo to keep its share of the plunder;

» The US State Department and Justice Department have thwarted efforts by some of the 700,000 victims of the Pacific War -- surviving prisoners-of-war, slave labourers, rape camp survivors and civilian victims -- from claiming the loot as compensation.

The new information opens the door to class-action lawsuits demanding long-overdue reparations from Japan for all its victims. The meticulously researched accounts by the Seagraves, the best-selling authors of critically-acclaimed books, Lords of the Rim and The Soong Dynasty, are documentated in almost 100 pages of end-notes and two CDs containing thousands of scanned documents.

"Ninety per cent of what was shipped to Japan remains in Japan today, including tens of thousands of ancient Chinese scrolls looted from libraries and private collections and other art and patrimony that is essentially beyond price", Mr Seagrave told The Sunday Times.

So who were the victims? They were overseas Chinese tycoons, Malay royalty, Buddhist sects, drug lords, triads and ordinary citizens. Ancient tombs were also raided.

Said Mr Seagrave: "We can't even put a ballpark figure on what was stolen from Singapore and Malaya, since this would include gold looted from banks and treasure of all kinds from individuals, temples. clan associations and the underworld."