Everything Also Complain

From ‘SLA staff member charged with fraud of $11.8 m’, 28 Oct 2011, article by S Ramesh in Channel News Asia website.

A senior staff member of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is facing 249 charges of cheating the Authority of $11.8 million. 40-year-old Koh Seah Wee was charged on June 25. He is alleged to have conspired with two others, Lim Chai Meng and Ho Yen Teck to cheat the Authority.

He did so by awarding network maintenance contracts to various companies. Koh was a deputy director with SLA’s Technology and Infrastructure Department and his level of approval allowed payments to be made to these shell companies. No work was done to fulfil the contracts.

According to some charge sheets, payments were made in amounts ranging from $25,000 to $60,000. Koh also faces several charges of using his ill-gotten gains to buy cars and properties. The charges said that Koh had used the money to pay for a Lamborghini, Mercedes Benz cars, acquire property at Axis@Siglap along East Coast Terrace, and purchase various unit trusts.

What would you do if you were a fraudster who has managed to embezzle your organisation and turn into a multi-millionaire overnight? Why, spend it in the most extravagant, least discreet way possible of course. Instead of harping on the integrity breach and betrayal of public trust, and considering my lack of experience in cheating people of their money and analysing scam methodologies, here’s a brief history and profile of local high-profile swindle cases and how these con-men (CEOs, monks, principals) squander their spoils, from cars to private jets, casinos , mistresses and even gold-plated bathroom fittings.

1)  Just a day after this piece of news, an ex-M1 account manager was charged for ‘criminal breach of trust’ and ‘money laundering’ by stealing handsets and creating bogus subscription contracts. He then spent his loot on luxury watches including a $50,000 Patek Philippe watch, three Rolex watches worth $8,000 each and Audemars Piguet watches worth between $15,000 and $30,000 each. He also bought Porsches and invested $300,000 in Metalgraces, a sci-fi movie for Hollywood (Ex-staff jailed 6 years for embezzling $2 million, Sg Yahoo news). A Google search revealed nothing about this project.

2) Businesses aside, even school principals get their fingers dirty as well. A former Maris Stella High School principal took $148,540 between May 2004 and September 2009 from the school’s account. The money was spent on a ‘relative’s overseas school trips’ and ‘other supplementary lessons’. Such misplaced, criminal ‘altruism’ was committed even by monks (see below Ren Ci saga)

3) In what’s touted as Singapore’s biggest corporate heist to date, ex finance manager of Asia Pacific Breweries Chia Teck Leng took off with $117 million from foreign banks over 4 years from 1999. His ill-gotten fortunes were spent taking private jets to Crown Casinos in Australia, or ‘high roliing’ on Star Cruises, to feed a gambling addiction. Part of the money was also spent on abetting a 22 year old China national lover to use a forged passport to enter Singapore. Compulsive gambling was also the impetus behind customer service officer Chong Seah Wee’s ripping off his employer HSBC of $12.6 million over 5 years (1997-2002). Ironically he was caught based on suspicious winnings from 4D (over $20 million from Singapore Pools)

4) Charities are not immune from fraud either. In the NKF saga of 2004, CEO T T Durai splurged on first-class flights, gave himself the infamous $600,000 ‘peanuts’ annual salary (in addition to bonuses) and installed a golden tap in an executive bathroom, perhaps taking the King Midas fable a touch too seriously. In 2009, founder and CEO of Ren Ci hospital the venerable Shi Ming Yi was found guilty of misappropriating $50,000 to his aide Raymond Yeung for his own ‘personal’ use.

3) In 2000, Cabin crew supervisor Henry Teo Cheng Kiat cheated SIA of a $35 million dollars over 13 years by misappropriating payroll funds, spending the money on the ‘high life’: Seven private properties for which he paid about $6.5 million; a Mercedes-Benz C200 and BMW 728; jewellery and branded watches worth $1.85 million; an array of designer goods; and five-star hotel accommodation in Kuala Lumpur at least once a month

4)  ‘White-collar’ crime as we know it today existed in a more rudimentary form in the early 20th century. Assistant manager and cashier Tan Boon Kiah of Hai Tong Bank and Insurance co swiped $100,000 between the months of Oct and Nov in 1934 (Charges against Tan Boon Kiah, 7 Dec 1934) Needless to say that in the 1930′s this was an enormous sum of money, though the methods were primitive by today’s standards (Tan just took money from the safe). But that’s what modern corporate scams really are, just a roundabout, hoodwinking way of taking someone else’s money i.e stealing.  Calling it a ‘criminal breach of trust’ is sugar coating it.

So, no one is immune to temptation by fraud, not even monks, and you don’t even need to be a manager or director with key responsibilities to pick your employer’s pockets. Extravagance aside, the biggest corporate scam artists also happen to be compulsive gamblers (both are high risk-taking activities), which means casinos and Singapore Pools are unwittingly flushed with dirty money, and the absolving of all responsibility on the part of the gaming industry when it comes to such crimes needs to be questioned. Some culprits don’t even do it out of greed, instead taking the heat for a fellow man, for all the wrong, and rather bewildering, reasons. But what’s intriguing is how nobody reports about tracing money spent at high-end restaurants, which suggests that going on a binge-spree at random Michelin-rated restaurants around the world could be one possible way to cover the ‘scent of money’. Another dispersion trick is to give each relative of yours (provided they don’t snitch on your sudden wealth) an all-expenses-paid ticket around Europe, or organise a underground elite escort party for all your buddies, or better still, convert all your cash into gold coins and stash it in a giant safe-cum-swimming pool like Scrooge McDuck.

Filed under: 1930s, 1990s, 2000s, 2011, Bureaucrats, Casino/gambling, Justice system/Lawsuits, Money Tagged: | bureaucrats, justice system, Money