• Ng Cheng Kwee was jailed for 17 years and nine months, his wife Lee Lai Leng was jailed for 14 years
• The couple were part of a criminal syndicate that used dormant businesses to illegally obtain about S$40 million in training grants from SkillsFuture Singapore
• Six operatives of the syndicate had earlier been convicted
• They were sentenced to jail terms ranging from two years and nine months to eight years and eight months
• Court proceedings against three other people are ongoing

SINGAPORE — A married couple was sentenced on Monday (Aug 16) for their involvement in a criminal syndicate that used nine dormant businesses to illegally obtain about S$40 million in training grants from SkillsFuture Singapore.

Ng Cheng Kwee was jailed for 17 years and nine months, while his wife Lee Lai Leng was jailed for 14 years.

In a news release on Monday, the Singapore Police Force and SkillsFuture Singapore said that the two have pleaded guilty to cheating, forgery and money laundering offences and were convicted on April 23 this year. Other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing, the authorities said.

SkillsFuture Singapore is a statutory board under the Ministry of Education and it works with educational institutions and training partners to promote industry-relevant training and lifelong learning. 

HOW THE SYNDICATE OPERATED

Between January and July 2017, Ng, Lee and other operatives of the scheme had conspired to register nine dormant entities as applicant companies and training providers with SkillsFuture Singapore.

They had planned to use the SingPass log-in credentials of the couple as well as their family members. SingPass is the national passcode system to access e-government services.

They then submitted various forged documents such as Central Provident Fund statements, utilities bills and rental bills through SkillsFuture Singapore's SkillsConnect portal to register the organisational profile of these entities.

Ng and Lee then submitted fraudulent course fee grant applications and claims between April and August 2017, which resulted in SkillsFuture Singapore disbursing more than S$400,000 of training grants to the entities.

Following this, the group recruited other people as nominee directors for the nine entities to prevent their own names from appearing in the claims and to evade detection by the authorities.

In July 2017, three people — Ang Cheng Guan, Tan Wee Kee and a third person — agreed to be the directors of the nine entities and handed over their SingPass credentials to the syndicate in return for financial gains.

Between August and October 2017, Ng, Lee and the other operatives of the syndicate again submitted fraudulent course fee grant applications and claims to SkillsFuture Singapore using the SingPass credentials of three people they recruited.

This resulted in more than S$39.5 million of training grants being disbursed to the entities.

When SkillsFuture Singapore flagged some of the course fee grant applications and claims for manual checks, the couple then submitted forged or falsified documents between May and August 2017.

These included employment contracts and attendance records of training courses that were never conducted.

In total, the syndicate submitted a total of 8,381 course fee grant applications and a corresponding 8,391 claims to SkillsFuture Singapore between April and October 2017.

These submissions purportedly recorded 25,141 employees working for the six dormant applicant entities who had allegedly attended training courses conducted by the three dormant training providers.

“There were no training courses conducted and none of the 25,141 individuals were employees of the applicant entities. The syndicate’s scheme resulted in SkillFuture Singapore disbursing about S$39.9 million of training grants in total to the corporate bank accounts of eight entities,” the police and the agency said. 

In August and September 2017, Ng and Lee then cashed cheques from the corporate bank account of one of the nine entities.

To conceal his identity, Ng got an acquaintance called Vincent Peter to arrange for someone to encash cheques from the corporate accounts of the nine entities that had been pre-signed by the nominee directors.

Peter in turn approached Manickam Pragasam and Nathan Muniandy to encash the cheques. The cash was then handed to Ng or to another operative of the syndicate who would then hand the cash to Lee.

The cash was then placed in a safe at the flat of Lee’s brother, a man called Lee Chi Wai, who then used some of the cash to buy a total of 11kg of gold in the form of gold bars from two jewellery shops located in People’s Park Complex.

On Oct 28 that year, Ng left Singapore for China. While he was overseas, he called his wife to move the contents in the safe. 

She then told her brother to move the contents — comprising S$6,742,380 in cash and the gold bars — to a different location for safekeeping. 

The man followed his sister’s instructions and placed most of the contents in a black duffel bag and a suitcase — except for S$50,000 cash and four boxes of commemorative coins that were free gifts from the purchase of the gold bars.

He then moved the suitcase and the duffel bag to a friend’s residence.

That same day, Ng called an operative of the syndicate to leave the cash in the boot of a car and to park the car at a secluded place.

On the same night, Ng also instructed Lee to throw her mobile phone away knowing that it contained evidence of her dealings with him and her brother.

Lee threw the phone near the Henderson Waves bridge in the Telok Blangah area. She was arrested on Nov 2, 2017 while Ng was arrested on Dec 4, 2017, upon his return to Singapore.

‘NEW CAPABILITIES’ TO DETECT FRAUD

The six operatives of the syndicate — Nathan Muniandy, Tan Wee Kee, Vincent Peter, Ang Cheng Guan, Manickam Pragasam — had earlier been convicted and sentenced to jail terms ranging from two years and nine months to eight years and eight months.

Court proceedings against three other people are ongoing.

The police said that they treat the abuse of government grants seriously and will not hesitate to take actions against such offenders, who will be dealt with severely in accordance with the law.

SkillsFuture Singapore said that it will not hesitate to impose penalties against those who contravene its funding terms and conditions.

“Since this incident, SkillsFuture Singapore has acquired new capabilities, such as fraud analytics, and put in place new processes to prevent, detect and respond to fraud and abuse, whether by individuals or by companies,” the agency and the police said.