Sarah Ooi - All for the Money. Bribery, Cheats, Swindles and Other Monetary Fraud in Singapore

2014 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Ooi, Sarah, author.

All for the money : bribery, cheats, swindles and other monetary fraud in Singapore / Sarah Ooi. Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2014

pages cm

ISBN : 978-981-4561-08-2 (paperback)

e-ISBN : 978 981 4634 73 1

1. White collar crimes Singapore. 1. Commercial crimes Singapore.

I. Title.

HV6771.S55

364.168095957 dc23 OCN883696225

Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd

MONEY CAN BE A DRIVING force that pushes people to do many things, and sometimes commit crimes. In many cases, duplicity is at the heart of those crimes and in some cases, the desperation for money can even result in murder. Even in a country like Singapore, often touted as having a low crime rate, corruption and fraud cases occur and sometimes to the tune of millions of dollars.

The cases mentioned in this book are varied. They include heinous crimes like murder and kidnapping, as well as scams that involve large syndicates and for which the real masterminds may well still be at large. As society changes, so will the modus operandi of criminals as they come up with more creative ways of cheating. Some will try to cheat insurance companies in the hope of getting compensation, while others will move to the online space. Certainly, the opening of the two integrated resorts with casinos in Singapore provides an even greater opportunity and temptation for some to try their luck at cheating.

We might be tempted to ask how we can identify cheats, or untrustworthy employees because certainly, in some of the cases mentioned, such as the casino cheats or the SIA employee who stole millions from his company, the insider is a main player in the scam. However, there is no predetermined face or age or race to a criminal. The criminals in this book, or those accused of crime, cover a wide age range. Their socio-economic backgrounds are also vastly different.

Even charities are not spared and in two cases covered, it is the people at the top who are being taken to task for misuse of funds and abusing their position. As they ride on the wave of donor generosity, their own lifestyles or attempts at deception raise serious questions about their real intentions. Ren Ci Hospitals CEO, Ming Yi, who is a monk, led a life of luxury even while performing death-defying feats to raise funds for poor families with hefty medical bills. The City Harvest Church has had six of its leaders arrested for a misuse of church funds and for attempts to falsify documents to cover up the misuse of millions of dollars.

Whatever their backgrounds, whatever their mode of operation, the cases in this book centre around one motivating factor money.

IN 2010, A SENSATIONAL CRIME made the newspaper headlines for being the first instance in Singapore where an insurance agent sold a non-existent policy. This sensational case involved the sale of a fake policy by an ex-AIA insurance agent to an Indonesian businessman with premiums costing US$5 million.

Sally Low Ai Ming used to be an AIA insurance agent. She rose through the ranks to be one of the top agents, making it to the Top of the Table (TOT), the highest honour among Million Dollar Round Table agents. She had even been featured in The Sunday Times in March 2001 and was among the youngest agents in the world to be considered a TOT agent.

In 2000, she got to know Enny Ariandini Pramana (aged 71), the wife of Indonesian businessman Ong Han Ling, who soon became her client. From that time on, Low sold Enny several policies and soon became a trusted agent. According to Mr Ong, she often visited them in their home on Scotts Road.

In 2002, Low told Mr Ong about a new policy, called the AIA Thank You Policy that was offered only to a select group of clients. In order to take up this policy, Mr Ong had to pay a premium of US$5 million, of which US$3.3 million comprised a US-dollar component and S$3 million was for a Singapore-dollar component. Mr Ong made the premium payment to AIA via telegraphic transfers in November 2002.

The policy was supposed to have a maturity payment after five years. The payout included annual fixed returns of 6 per cent for the US-dollar component and 7 per cent for the Singapore-dollar component. This would have worked out to a maturity value of about US$4.95 million for the US-dollar component and S$4.5 million for the Singapore-dollar component.

As part of her scam to sell Mr Ong a fake policy, Low also falsified official forms and forged documents. After making the payment for the AIA Thank You Policy, Mr Ong was said to have received three fake policy documents from Low as confirmation that the policy application had been approved.

However, without Mr Ong's knowledge, Low had used that premium payment made out to AIA to purchase four policies in Mr Ong and his wifes names. She had submitted forged documents to AIA in order to purchase those policies.

In January 2005, Low told Mr Ong that two computer errors at AIA led to the issuance of a policy that was erroneously taken out under his name. In actuality, there were no computer errors. She then informed Mr Ong that in order for him not to lose his money, he had to assist in the surrender of the erroneous policy.

The plan was for AIA to issue Mr Ong a cheque for S$6.18 million. Mr Ong then had to repay the principal sum of S$5.3 million to AIA. For his efforts, he could keep the profit of S$887,000, which was supposedly the amount of profit AIA would have made from the policy.

However, unlike the initial premium payment, the sum of S$5.3 million was not to be paid out to AIA, but to Ms Low. This was a highly unusual practice. Initially, Mr Ong was reluctant to go ahead with this instruction but Low reassured him that she was authorised by her company to collect the money. She even produced a letter signed by Mark ODell, the general manager of AIA at that time, stating that she could collect the money on behalf of the insurer. Hence reassured, Mr Ong issued a cheque to Low.