Jail for man who used forged letters to apply for passport, in-camp training deferment
A man sent a forged letter of appointment to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) in his passport application in September 2022.
Winson Chua Xianwen also submitted documents including another forged letter to MHA’s national service (NS) portal in his application for a deferment of his in-camp training (ICT) period in 2023.
The 39-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery for the purpose of cheating and was sentenced to 10 months’ jail on Jan 25.
For reasons not disclosed in court documents, Chua’s passport was earlier cancelled in 2015.
He later created a letter, purportedly from the managing director of a construction firm, and sent it via e-mail as part of his passport application on Sept 5, 2022.
This forged letter of appointment, dated Aug 1, 2022, bore the so-called managing director’s digital signature and the company’s letterhead.
The document stated that Chua had been offered a job as a project manager at the firm, and his job scope included liaising with Malaysia-based clients and suppliers.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Quek Lu Yi told the court that Chua forged the letter to intentionally induce MHA and ICA to approve his passport application.
The truth emerged when the authorities contacted the purported managing director and found out that he did not hold any position in the firm.
The man also told investigators that he did not draft the letter and was not even aware of its existence.
Court documents did not state when the authorities reached out to the purported managing director, but further investigations revealed that Chua had committed a similar offence on another occasion.
He had submitted documents, including another forged letter dated Dec 28, 2022, to MHA’s NS portal to support his application for a deferment of his ICT, which was slated to take place between March 27 and April 9, 2023.
This deferment letter also bore the construction firm’s letterhead. The digital signature of the same “managing director” was also appended to the forged document, which Chua created using Microsoft Word.
The prosecutor said: “The accused had forged the deferment letter intending to commit fraud by causing the MHA NS services branch to defer the accused’s ICT period on the basis that the accused had been appointed at the company and was needed... to run projects.”
Chua’s application for a deferment of his ICT period was approved on Jan 10, 2023.
On Jan 25, the DPP urged the court to sentence Chua to up to 11 months’ jail, stressing that his offences were premeditated.
Defence lawyer Raphael Louis, however, pleaded for his client to be given a shorter jail term. He said his client’s offences had caused no financial losses.
Chua’s bail had been set at $20,000, and he was told to surrender himself at the State Courts on Feb 19 to begin his jail term.
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