A former director of the NTU affiliate accused of conspiring to deceive the university

SINGAPORE: A former director of the innovation and business branch of Nanyang Technological University was indicted on Wednesday, November 28 for conspiring with other people to defraud the university and its subsidiaries of over S $ 200,000.

Cheng Choong Hung, 55, faces 120 counts of fraud, money laundering and corruption, which he allegedly committed between August 2014 and April 2016.

Cheng allegedly conspired with several accomplices to induce NTB, NTuitive and its affiliate TechBiz Xccelerator (TBX) to make payments to companies for work that they did not perform.

One of his alleged accomplices, Louise Lai Pei Hsien, former director of the company I-KnowHow, was charged with 15 cheating heads on Wednesday.

Lai, 42, is accused of conspiring with Cheng to deceive NTU, TBX and NTUitive by submitting bills from his company for work that she has not done.

These included market research for data-driven social marketing, developing websites for developing NTUitive and mobile applications.

Cheng also allegedly plotted with another person, Mr. Fung Kwok Pan, to deceive NTU and TBX by submitting invoices from a digital design company, Voidworks, for work that she did not do. executed, such as web platform design and application development.

It has not been explained how Mr. Fung is related to Voidworks or Cheng.

In addition, Cheng was accused of having cheated the university into believing that a woman, Ms. Lu Jiawen, was employed by TBX while she was not there. .

In this way, NTU paid Ms. Lu a salary of S $ 21,000 between July 2015 and December 2015.

After the receipt of the alleged proceeds of crime by I-KnowHow, Voidworks and Lu, Cheng allegedly facilitated the channeling of money into a bank account belonging to another party, Mr. Xu Meng, said in a statement the Office of Corruption Practices Survey (CPIB).

Cheng had access to Mr. Xu's bank account and had transferred most of the funds to himself. Since then, CPIB has seized around $ 281,000 from Cheng.

It has not been clarified whether the other parties will be charged.

Once contacted, NTU told Channel NewsAsia that Cheng was no longer at the university.

"He left in June 2016. NTU reported the case to CPIB in August 2016 as soon as it became aware of the alleged wrongdoing," he said.

"The university is not able to comment because the case is going on."