SINGAPORE - Using false documents, two directors of different wholesale trade companies worked together to deceive DBS Bank into giving one of the firms more than $500,000 in loans linked to business transactions that did not exist.

Pang Siu Shen, 48, from Dingx, was sentenced on Feb 21 to two years and six months’ jail.

His accomplice, Loo Guo Jian, 53, from Atticoz International, was sentenced to two years and two months behind bars.

Pang and Loo will be appealing against their convictions and sentences.

They were each offered bail of $70,000.

In November 2023, District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt convicted the two Singaporeans on three counts of cheating each after a trial.

In his submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutor David Koh told the court that though the loans were eventually repaid, the offenders’ deception had placed DBS at a significant risk of losses.

“It is important to deter offenders like the accused persons who are willing to deceive financial institutions to obtain financing for their own needs, without care as to the risks for the financial institutions or the financial system at large,” he said, adding that Pang and Loo were business associates and friends.

Pang had been a director of 18 companies since 1997, including Dingx, which was involved in the trading of cigarettes.

Between April 12, 2019, and March 11, 2020, Dingx submitted eight applications to DBS for import financing.

Invoices and delivery orders from the supplier Atticoz, which Loo incorporated in May 2005, were attached to the applications.

The last three loan applications between November 2019 and March 2020 form the subject of the three cheating charges.

Pang signed off on these three applications, which were later submitted to the bank.

DBS approved the applications and disbursed more than $500,000 to Atticoz, which then transferred a bulk of the amount to Dingx.

DPP Koh said that Dingx did not actually buy cigarettes from Atticoz.

But the defence’s case was that there were indeed such transactions between the two firms.

The DPP, however, noted that Pang had told an investigation officer in a statement in May 2020 that he had run into cash flow issues in 2019 and asked Loo for a favour.

According to court documents, Pang had said: “I requested him to create (an invoice)... The bank would then pay the invoice to Atticoz and then Atticoz will pass the money to me.

“The cargoes were cigarettes but I do not know the brand of the cigarettes. It’s only paperwork and there (were) no goods... to me.”

Loo also made similar admissions to the police, said the DPP.

“Both accused persons repeatedly admitted in investigations that there were no goods supplied by Atticoz to Dingx for these three applications, and that they had agreed that Atticoz would instead transfer the sums disbursed by DBS to Dingx afterwards,” DPP Koh added.

“The accused persons have been entirely unable to explain away these admissions.”

For each count of cheating, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.