SINGAPORE — Pretending he was involved in a legal moneylending business with now-Minister of Education Ong Ye Kung, as well as Mr Ong's wife, a former grassroots volunteer cheated a dozen people of about S$1.4 million.
Reichie Chng Teck Kiam even faked WhatsApp conversations between Mr Ong and himself using a second mobile phone, in order to convince his victims of the minister's involvement.
After more than four years, the 51-year-old was arrested on March 24 last year, after one of his victims told Mr Ong what happened.
On Thursday (May 17), Chng was sentenced to eight years' jail after admitting to 30 charges of cheating, forgery, money laundering, and obtaining a personal loan when he was an undischarged bankrupt. One hundred and twenty-two other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
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Chng was a grassroots volunteer with the Kaki Bukit constituency between 2011 and 2015, the court heard. As a result, he became acquainted with Mr Ong, who was an advisor for the constituency.
For about four years and four months between November 2012 and March 2017, Chng solicited S$1,478,900 of investments and personal loans from his 12 victims, using that money largely to sustain his gambling habit. He has so far repaid them only S$51,680.
Chng had told his victims that he was raising investment funds in Elite Investment & Credit, a Singapore-registered company that ran a legal moneylending business. He also lied to them that Mr Ong and his wife were involved in the company.
He told them if they invested, they would receive lucrative monthly returns of 3 to 8 per cent.
Subsequently, he showed three of his victims phony WhatsApp conversations between him and Mr Ong to assure them that their investments were secure.
He did so by registering an additional WhatsApp account using a second mobile phone line. He then set a picture of Mr Ong as the profile picture, and used "OYK" as the profile name.
He proceeded to fake the conversations using this second account and his own WhatsApp account, took screenshots, and sent them to his victims. However, they began suspecting the investment scheme was phony and began demanding their money back.
He also forged an agreement with a "Diana Kuik Sin Len", whom he told one victim was Mr Ong's wife, saying he had invested S$15 million with her.
In terms of his money laundering charges, Chng had converted S$131,067 that he cheated from his victims into casino chips for gambling at the Marina Bay Sands casino.
In September 2013, he had also borrowed S$50,000 from one of his victims without telling him that he was an undischarged bankrupt. He was declared bankrupt in 1994, and was not allowed to obtain credit of S$500 or more from anyone without telling them of his situation. He was discharged from bankruptcy in 2015.
Asking for at least eight years' imprisonment, Deputy Public Prosecutor Vikneswaran Kumaran called Chng a "serial cheat", pointing towards the "highly premeditated nature of his crimes and deceptive conduct".
DPP Vikneswaran also noted earlier that Chng was previously jailed three months in 1998 on four corruption offences.
Chng's lawyer Sinnadurai T Maniam told the court that he had co-operated with investigators. "It was a complicated issue, and without his help, it would have been difficult," he added.
During sentencing, District Judge Ng Peng Hong said Chng had exploited his position as a grassroots volunteer, and his sentence needed to reflect his level of culpability.
For each charge of cheating, Chng could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
For each count of forgery for the purpose of cheating, he could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
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