SINGAPORE - A director of a firm dealing with items such as paper packaging products appeared in a district court on Thursday (June 11) over his alleged links to a cheating case involving more than $2 million in loans.
Chong Teng Siow from Jit Sheng Graphic & Paper Manufacture was charged with 28 counts of being part of a conspiracy to cheat. An online search revealed that the company is now in liquidation.
The 61-year-old Singaporean was one of two men accused of cheating banks in separate incidents. The other man is Ramu Bangaraiyah, 45.
Chong is accused of engaging in the conspiracy with a woman identified as Ms Doreen Toh Bee Ghuan, whose details were not disclosed in court documents.
The pair are said to have worked together to cheat The Bank of East Asia, Singapore from 2016 to 2018.
Between April 21 and Dec 13, 2016, Ms Toh allegedly forged documents to dupe the bank into believing that Jit Sheng had entered into a business transaction with a company known as Added Marketing to sell and print customised cardboard boxes for the latter.
She is also said to have falsely stated that Added Marketing, which prints items such as magazines, had to repay Jit Sheng on a "credit payment term basis".
As a result, the bank was allegedly induced to issue credit facilities totalling more than $124,000 to Jit Sheng.
Chong and Ms Toh are accused of using a similar method to cheat the bank after this, claiming that Jit Sheng had also entered into business transactions with other firms, including Sats Catering and Emicakes Singapore.
Chong's bail has been set at $100,000 and he is expected to plead guilty on July 29.
Separately, Ramu, a former director of a marine engineering company, was charged in court on Thursday with 21 counts of cheating and two counts of attempted cheating.
On Wednesday, police said in a statement that he had submitted invoices with inflated values on 23 occasions to obtain "significantly higher advance payments" totalling more than $200,000.
An online search revealed that the Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident used to be the owner of B.T.R Marine & Engineering and another firm known as Vilaa Enterprise.
He is accused of cheating Maybank Singapore multiple times in late 2017.
Ramu is said to have cheated the bank on Sept 14 that year by submitting a fraudulent tax invoice for work done by B.T.R Marine & Engineering for Keppel Shipyard.
The bank was then allegedly duped into believing that the amount stated on the tax invoice was payable to B.T.R Marine & Engineering. Maybank Singapore was allegedly induced to disburse more than $12,000 to the firm.
Ramu is said to have used a similar method to cheat the bank in other instances.
Police also said in their statement that investigations revealed that Ramu had used a PDF editing software to edit invoices to inflate values, "thereby dishonestly inducing the bank into delivering higher payment to the company".
Ramu's bail was set at $40,000 and he will be back in court on July 9.
For each count of cheating, offenders can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
