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SINGAPORE – A 50-year-old woman was jailed for 4 1/2 years on Wednesday (March 3) for tricking several banks into disbursing about $ 1.8 million in loans.
Tan You Jia pleaded guilty to two counts of corruption and four counts of conspiracy to deceive a 51-year-old man, Lee Beng Yong, which involved more than $ 700,000 in total.
When sentencing her, Chief District Judge Toh Han Li took into consideration 10 other counts related to deception, including those related to the remaining amount, and three counts of corruption.
All the crimes occurred between 2014 and 2015.
Court documents say that sometime between 2012 and 2013, Tan and Lee met.
Later, Lee agreed to work for Tan on his business, which involved applying for business installment loans on behalf of the companies.
Financial institutions, including banks, offer such loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for their business operations.
As part of the loan application, an SME must submit certain documents to the financial institution’s relationship managers, including the company’s bank statements for the last six months.
Assistant District Attorney Haniza Abnass said Tan and Lee would seek people to act as company directors and apply for the loans.
“In exchange for agreeing to register as directors of the company, these individuals were typically promised a portion of the funds disbursed from loan applications,” the DPP said.
The duo knew that the appointed directors were simply nominees who did not operate the companies and, in most cases, were financially unable to obtain the loans, according to court documents.
After one person agreed to the arrangement, Lee would purchase a “shelf company” from a corporate secretarial service provider.
A “shelf business” is a business that is not in business and can be sold to people looking to start a business without going through the process of setting up a new one.
The court heard that Lee also helped Tan rent office space so that any correspondence from the shelf company could be sent to that address.
Once the company had been purchased and the person appointed as its director, Tan or Lee would take on the task of applying for a commercial installment loan from one of three financial institutions: DBS Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and Maybank.
After the loan was disbursed into the company’s bank account, Lee would see to it that the designated director withdraws most of the funds in cash.
“The investigations were unable to trace the movement of the funds after the withdrawal,” DPP Haniza said.
It was later revealed that the bank statements submitted in support of the loan applications were false.
Court documents say the people who forged and physically delivered the bank statements remain unknown.
Tan and Lee also gave $ 10,500 in bribes to two Maybank and StanChart relationship managers as a reward for processing loan applications, the court heard.
DPP Haniza said that about $ 1.8 million in loans were approved, and the banks eventually suffered losses of about $ 1.5 million in total.
DBS and StanChart staff later made police reports in 2015, saying they had received falsified bank statements from various companies in connection with loans.
The court heard that no restitution has been made so far.
Lee and the nominated directors will be discussed separately.
DPP Haniza urged the court to imprison Tan for at least five years, saying she was “one of the main promoters” of the ruse and had enlisted Lee to carry out her instructions.
Begging for mercy, Tan said to mitigate that Lee had taken most of the money.
The judge delayed her sentence to July 11, 2019, when she was placed in preventive detention.
For every crime related to deception, Tan could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
She could also have been jailed for up to five years or fined up to $ 100,000, or both, for each of the corruption charges.
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