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In addition to their luggage, Lee Lai Leng took to the airport on September 1 of last year a bag containing $ 930,000 in cash, before leaving for her husband and herself on vacation in Hong Kong.
At the airport, she handed the money bag to her brother Lee Chi Wai to keep him safe. Over the next two months, she went to her Sengkang apartment, depositing large sums of money and gold in a safe, until she that it contains $ 6.7 million in cash and 11 kg of gold worth $ 626,500.
Details on how some of the ill-gotten gains from a $ 40 million scam against SkillsFuture Singapore – the biggest fraud so far against a government agency – have been spared were unveiled in court yesterday when Lee Chi Wai, 32, was sentenced to five years and eight years. months in prison for money laundering.
Her 40-year-old sister Lee Lai Leng and her husband, Ng Cheng Kwee, 42, are believed to be important members of a syndicate that allegedly carried out the scam from May through October through from a series of screen companies and false claims.
It was around May last that Lee Chi Wai realized that his sister and her husband were getting richer and richer. The couple, whose apartment had been taken over after the failure of the Ng coffee company, began driving a Mercedes-Benz of the occasion and was looking to buy a new home.
Lee admitted that in July of last year, her sister had asked her for details about her bank account and that of their parents, saying she had to put money in there. because she "could not have any".
After saying that she would transfer him $ 49,950, he told her to proceed with transfers "little by little" and warned that there would be an audit trail.
On Sept. 7, her sister told her that the couple was trying to withdraw at least $ 1.4 million from the bank, with the help of several others.
Seeing the wealth of the couple, Lee asked his sister a loan to buy a car, and on September 9, she transferred $ 30,000.
Between September and October of last year, she went to her apartment several times, depositing large sums of money in the safe that she had planned to give her.
On October 30 and 31, she bought 6 kg of gold bullion valued at $ 344,000 at two jewelers in the People's Park complex. She also asked Lee to collect five more 1 kg gold bullion worth 282,500 dollars. As of November 1, there was $ 6.7 million in cash and 11 kg of gold in the vault.
But the same day, Lee received a call from her sister, who seemed confused when she told him to empty the safe and pass the contents to someone else to keep him safe. .
He then placed most of the money and gold in a black sports bag and suitcase, leaving $ 50,000 and commemorative coins in the safe.
After Lee brought the bags to a friend's house, his sister told him to "format" his phone and that of his parents. He deleted his WhatsApp conversations with her, but did not format her phone. The next day, the brothers and sisters were arrested by the commercial affairs department.
Lee finally revealed the location of the money and the gold, and the police seized them at his friend 's house, as well as the remaining contents in the safe.
Yesterday, Lee's lawyer, Mr. Gino Hardial Singh, said Lee knew something was wrong, but not the extent of what his sister had done. He explained that his client was motivated not by personal gain, but by a blind trust, that he had acted out of deference for his sister and that he had since returned $ 30,000 in loan repayment.
Deputy Attorney General Ivan Chua argued that this had little weight as full compensation was paid last Friday.
The lack of knowledge was also not a mitigating factor, the PDP said.
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