A member of a union of 5 people jailed for more than 40 million dollars

SINGAPORE: An unemployed man who was part of a union of five people who had defrauded the SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) official board of directors, amounting to nearly 40 million Singaporean dollars, was sentenced to five years and eight months imprisonment on Tuesday, 27 November.

Lee Chi Wai – the first person to have been convicted of fraud – was part of a criminal syndicate that had conspired to obtain subsidies for SSG training with the help of fake documents.

The court estimated that Lee, aged 32, had helped to conceal proceeds of $ 6.7 million from Singapore and 11 kg of gold from his home and had laundered some of l & # 39; money.

The lawsuits against the four other members of the union, namely his mother, sister, brother-in-law and friend, are ongoing.

READ: SkillsFuture suspects accused of scams for $ 40 million

READ: Interagency Task Force to Examine SkillsFuture Fraud after $ 40 Million Singapore Scam

$ 40 million over six months

The union used a network of nine entities registered in Singapore – three training providers and six companies or companies supposedly sent by employees – for courses – to submit 8,386 applications for fraudulent course fees and related requests to SSG between May and October of last year.

The requests indicated that training courses had been provided to approximately 25,000 employees of the six applicant companies.

As a result, SGS paid S 39.9 million to the six companies and three training providers.

The scam was discovered after SSG detected anomalies in training grant applications in late October 2017. She immediately suspended all grant payments to the nine business entities and reported the case to the police.

Since then, he has strengthened his processes, including implementing fraud scans and conducting a comprehensive review of the system.

LEE INVOLVING IN THE SCAM

Last May, Lee noticed that her 40-year-old sister and co-accused, Lee Lai Leng, had suddenly become rich, while her financial situation was not "good" before.

In July of last year, she asked to transfer 49,950 Singapore dollars to Lee because his account "can not have money". Lee warned his sister to make the transfer "little by little" so as not to leave an audit trail, court documents said.

Lee's sister also paid him $ 930,000 in cash in September 2017 before going on vacation with her husband, co-accused Ng Cheng Kwee, 42 years old.

Lee took the money bag home and put it in a drawer. In total, he hid $ 6.7 million in cash and 11 kg of gold from the sum extracted from SSG in a safe located at his home.

Just hours before his arrest by the Department of Commercial Affairs, Lee brought the proceeds of crime back into the safe at a friend's home to escape detection, the prosecutor's office said.

He also used part of the $ 79,950 proceeds of criminals deposited in his bank account to buy a car.

Lee pleaded guilty earlier this month to three counts of proceeds of crime.

Lee's sister was charged with falsifying a document from the PCF board of directors to deceive the GSU by granting grants for course fees, and to incite her brother to conceal the proceeds of criminal activity.

Deputy Prosecutors Ivan Chua Chwee Boon, Tan Hsiao Tien and Cheng Yuxi had requested a prison sentence of at least 75 months for Lee, claiming that money laundering offenses were serious offenses facilitating the perpetration of crimes. Serious offenses.

These crimes are easy to commit, they said, simply by having offenders agree to receive funds in their arrears before transferring them elsewhere later.

Prosecutors added that public funds had been laundered, saying the damage "goes beyond pecuniary losses and includes damage to society and the potential trust of public confidence in the effective management of public funds" .

LEE RETURNED 30 000 USD: DEFENSE

Lee's lawyer, Gino Hardial Singh, has asked to be sentenced to a maximum sentence of 46 months imprisonment. He told the court that his client had returned $ 30,000 to SSG.

He said Lee was truly remorseful for his actions, which were "carried out in a moment of madness and lack of blind trust in his sister".

Mr. Singh added that Lee, married and father of a little girl, had fully cooperated with the authorities and had pleaded guilty early.

Lee was the main supporter of his family and worked as a coach at Manulife Singapore until his resignation last December, Singh said.

In his sentence, District Judge Luke Tan stated that it was "quite undeniable that there was a huge sum at stake", noting that he had accepted Lee's cooperation with the police and his plea of ​​guilty.