The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued prohibition orders against six individuals for fraudulent and dishonest conduct.
They have been banned from providing financial advice and taking part in the management, directorship, or becoming a substantial shareholder of a financial advisory firm.
The people are: Kim Chuan Poh, formerly at The Great Eastern Life Assurance Company, banned for 12 years; Kheng Swee Chew, from Prudential Assurance Singapore, banned for 10 years; Bin Chun Yap, former representative of United Overseas Bank, banned for 10 years; William Weiwen Lin, formerly at Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation, banned for eight years; Kelvin Goh Shang Fei, from NTUC Income Insurance Co-operative, banned for six years; and, Allan Lam, former representative of AIA Singapore, banned for six years.
The prohibition orders follow their separate convictions in Singapore’s state courts.
The cases were not related to one another.
Loo Siew Yee, assistant managing director (policy, payments & financial crime) at the Singapore regulator, said: “MAS expects representatives of our financial institutions to act with honesty and integrity at all times.
“The first five individuals abused the trust that their clients placed in them for their personal gain, while the last individual forged documents in order to evade taxes.
“Such dishonest behaviour has no place in Singapore’s financial industry and MAS will take action to exclude individuals who commit such acts from the industry,” he added.
Defrauding clients
Between 207 and 2012, Poh misappropriated S$190,822 ($132,725) from 32 policyholders.
The money was supposed to be used to pay for insurance premiums, topping up policies and for the purchase or renewal of covers.
He was convicted of criminal breach of trust and sentenced to 34 months in prison.
Chew conned five victims out of S$325,310 by making them believe he would make lump sum premium payments for insurance policies, but kept the money for himself instead. He also forged signatures on documents to deceive Prudential into accepting applications from two of the victims without their knowledge.
He was sentenced to 45 months’ imprisonment.
One of Yap’s clients was defrauded out of S$218,100 from his unit trust investment, as the adviser knew the victim was not going to be in Singapore for a considerable period of time. He managed to get the client’s signature on blank forms allowing him to redeem the victim’s unit trust, open a bank account and withdraw the money without the customer noticing.
Yap then went on to cheat a different victim out of S$20,000 claiming he needed the money for bail.
He was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
Forgery and deception
Lin tricked a client into believing she would be partially surrendering a policy, but executed a full surrender and kept S$30,535 for himself. He obtained the victim’s signature and used it to open a bank account in her name to receive the money without the victim knowing.
Lin then sent part of the funds to the victim and wrote a fake letter from the insurance firm to make the her believe the partial surrender had been successful.
He will spend 16 months in prison.
Goh has been found guilty of lying to one of his clients about receiving S$1,000 worth of vouchers if he made a lump sum payment on his policy. The victim gave Goh a cheque for S$27,399 which the adviser used to repay his personal debt.
He was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment.
And finally, Lam made a false tax return entry claiming his income for the 2014 financial year was S$123,796, when he had actually earned S$401,256. As a result, he was under–charged by S$50,348.
When the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore asked for evidence, it found out that Lam had used his clients’ names without their knowledge, to forge 36 payment vouchers showing that he paid referral fees to the victims and sent fake documents to the taxman.
He was handed a S$151,044 fine and will spend four months in prison.
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