He pocketed $100,000 in workers' claims

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He pocketed $100,000 in workers' claims

JAILED & FINED: Liang Lip Chieng pleaded guilty to 65 counts of cheating and one count of acting as a loan-shark runner.

Photo: Singapore Police Force

Elizabeth Law
Friday, Aug 7, 2015

A concrete pump supervisor was yesterday jailed for 24 months and fined $30,000 for cheating and loan-sharking activities.

Liang Lip Chieng, 49, cheated G & W Ready-Mix of nearly $103,000 over two years, from January 2011 to May 2013.

Liang, who faced 407 charges, pleaded guilty to 65 counts of cheating and one count of acting as a loan-shark runner.

The other 341 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The court heard that Liang supervised a team of concrete pump operators in the Sungei Kadut company.

The workers were paid based on the amount of concrete pumped. Liang was in charge of consolidating the workers' claim forms.

He inflated the numbers on the forms without informing the workers and then retrieved the extra payments from the workers by telling them they had been overpaid.

As all the workers are foreign nationals, they did not dare question Liang or raise the issue with the company.

Liang used the money to gamble or pay his gambling debts.

His offences came to light in mid-2013 when an executive director of the company saw some of the claim forms and realised that only Liang's signatures were on them.

CHECKS

Further checks revealed the extent of his crime.

G & W Ready-Mix confronted Liang, who had left the company by then.

He signed a letter on Aug 5, 2013, agreeing to repay the $102,047.21 he had taken by Nov 8 that year, but failed to do so.

In January 2013, Liang ran into financial difficulties because of his gambling habit and borrowed money from loan sharks.

Unable to keep up with payments, he became an "ATM-runner", doing fund transfers using his ATM card and bank account. He was arrested for his activities on Aug 27, 2013.