TODAY ONLINE : He forged signatures to steal $500k

He forged signatures to steal $500k

05:55 AM May 14, 2010

by Shaffiq Alkhatib



SINGAPORE - A former employee of a real estate company has pleaded guilty to forging signatures to withdraw more than $500,000 from the bank accounts of a condominium management committee.

Chew Swee Siong, 31, pleaded guilty to 28 charges. Another 158 were taken into consideration. He committed the offences between Nov 18, 2006, and July 10, 2007, while he was an employee of Kenwood Property Consultants. In total, Chew told police he had siphoned off about $1.5 million from the condominium over 18 months.

Chew, who was then based at West Bay Condominium at West Coast Crescent to manage its affairs, had forged the signatures of two people. They are Mr Baey Yam Chye, the former chairman of the management corporation strata title of West Bay Condominium, and Mr Yeoh Kiat Boon, its treasurer. Both are the authorised signatories of bank accounts with OCBC and Citibank.

Chew had collected the money for his own use. In mitigation, Chew's lawyer, Mr Gregory Vijayendran, cited medical reports which said his client suffers from a mental disorder known as pathological gambling.

Mr Vijayendran told District Judge Liew Thiam Leng that Chew has a "total loss of self-control when it comes to gambling activities". The lawyer asked for a lenient sentence as Chew had surrendered voluntarily.

Assistant Public Prosecutor, Kalidass Murugaiyan told the judge that he only received the written mitigation yesterday and requested for an adjournment to study it.

The case will be mentioned again on June 3.

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