Man jailed more than 3 years for $1.2m bank loan scam
A man who worked with a female accomplice to dupe two banks into disbursing loans totalling $1,218,000 by using false statements was sentenced to three years and nine months’ jail on Nov 11.
Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) (Singapore) was cheated of $178,000, while Maybank (Singapore) was cheated of the remaining $1.04 million.
District Judge Marvin Bay had earlier convicted Lee Beng Yong, 55, who is also known as Muhammad Zaki Lee, of six counts of cheating.
In earlier proceedings, defence lawyer Joshua Tong said that Lee’s accomplice, Tan You Jia, also known as Gina, had taken all the ill-gotten gains, while Lee, who acted like her employee, was paid $5,000.
Tan, then 50, was sentenced to 4½ years’ jail in March 2021.
Delivering his sentence on Nov 11, Judge Bay said that Lee could not be regarded as a “mere foot soldier” in the scheme and was instead closer to being Tan’s “trusted lieutenant”.
The judge added: “Despite not being the conceptual mastermind, (Lee) was actively involved in crucial aspects of the scheme... While (he) claimed to have received just a paltry $5,000... the extent of his actual rewards remains murky.”
Court documents stated that two offenders took part in a ruse in which companies were used to apply for loans without any intention to conduct genuine business operations.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Cheah Wenjie had said: “Instead, the companies were used to secure bank loans using forged documents, with the companies then making minimal repayments to maintain creditworthiness, and then obtaining another loan, akin to a Ponzi scheme.”
Lee met Tan during a marketing seminar called Surewin4you in 2013 and the pair kept in touch with each other.
Tan later asked Lee to work with her in a business she called “Roll & Roll” or “R&R”, which referred to the taking of bank loans using nominee directors.
In 2013, a woman called Grace Tan met Tan at a networking seminar and they remained in contact.
Tan later asked Ms Grace Tan to take over a dormant company. She also told Ms Grace Tan that she could help her earn money through this firm, and Ms Grace Tan agreed to be part of the plan.
Lee later accompanied Ms Grace Tan to a corporate secretarial firm and, after performing the necessary paperwork, she became the sole director and shareholder of a company called Natsal. It was eventually renamed Gervin International.
On or around April 12, 2014, Ms Grace Tan, on Tan’s instructions, opened a commercial account with OCBC Bank for Gervin International.
Ms Grace Tan also applied for two cheque books and passed one of them to Lee. He met her later so that she could sign the blank cheques.
Sometime before Aug 1 that year, Maybank received a business term loan application from Gervin International.
This application came with false documents, including forged OCBC statements purporting to be Gervin International’s bank account statements for the period from January to June 2014.
Maybank, believing that the forged bank statements were genuine, generated a letter of offer dated Aug 1, 2014, to lend Gervin International $190,000. About a week later, the amount was disbursed into the company’s bank account.
Lee then encashed six of Gervin International’s bank cheques.
Other individuals were also roped in to act as directors of other firms before duping Maybank and SCB of the remaining amount.
These other companies were Mansarover Import & Export, Bestcare, Juf Malsing Impex and Ottimo Group.
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