Standard Chartered Bank and Maybank cheated on $1,218,000 loan disbursement in ‘Roll & Roll’ scheme

Shaffiq Alchatib
The Street Times
October 15, 2024

Using false statements, a man worked with a female accomplice to defraud two banks into disbursing loans totaling $1,218,000 starting in 2014.

According to court documents, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) (Singapore) was defrauded of $178,000, while Maybank (Singapore) was defrauded of the remaining $1.04 million.

Lee Beng Yong, 55, also known as Muhammad Zaki Lee, was previously convicted of six counts of cheating. One of the charges was related to SCB, while five were related to Maybank.

On October 15, Deputy Public Prosecutor Cheah Wenjie urged the court to sentence Lee to five years and six months in prison, stressing that the perpetrator had not made restitution.

DPP Cheah also told District Judge Marvin Bay that the banks suffered more than $1 million in losses based on the charges.

Lawyer Joshua Tong argued for Lee to be jailed for one year and two months, adding that there was no evidence his client was involved in creating the false documents.

Mr Tong told the court that Lee’s accomplice, Tan You Jia, also known as Gina, took all the ill-gotten gains, while Lee, who acted as her employee, was paid $5,000.

Tan, then 50, was sentenced to 4½ years in prison in March 2021.

DPP Cheah in his statements said the two offenders participated in a ruse called “Roll & Roll”, where companies were used to apply for loans without any intention of carrying out any real business activities.

He added: “Instead, the companies were used to secure bank loans using forged documents, with the companies then making minimal repayments to maintain creditworthiness, and then obtaining a new loan, similar to a Ponzi scheme .”

The prosecutor told Judge Bay that Lee worked as a street vendor at several places in 2013, including his wife’s stall in Clementi.

He met Tan that year at a multi-level marketing seminar, Surewin4you, and the pair kept in touch.

Tan later asked Lee to work with her in a business she called ‘Roll & Roll’ or ‘R&R’, which referred to taking bank loans using candidate directors.

In 2013, a woman named Grace Tan met Tan at a networking seminar and they stayed in touch.

Tan later asked Mrs. Grace Tan to take over a dormant company. She also told Ms Grace Tan that she could help her earn money through this business.

Ms Grace Tan agreed to be part of the scheme and Tan told her to go to an office at International Plaza in Anson Road to sign some documents to take over the dormant company.

Lee then accompanied Ms Grace Tan to a company secretariat.

After completing the necessary paperwork, Ms Grace Tan became the sole director and shareholder of a company called Natsal, which was eventually renamed Gervin International.

Sometime on or about April 12, 2014, Ms Grace Tan, on Tan’s instructions, opened a commercial account with OCBC Bank for Gervin International.

Ms Grace Tan also requested two checkbooks and gave one to Lee. He met her later so she could sign the blank checks.

Some time before August 1 of that year, Maybank received an application for a business term loan from Gervin International.

This application was supplied with false documents, including forged OCBC statements claiming to be Gervin International’s bank account statements for the period between January 2014 and June 2014.

Maybank, believing the forged bank statements to be genuine, generated an offer letter on August 1, 2014 to loan Gervin International $190,000. About a week later, the amount was deposited into the company’s bank account.

Lee subsequently seized six bank checks from Gervin International. He claimed that the money was used, among other things, to purchase other companies.

He also claimed that the rest went to Tan.

The DPP said: “Gervin made installment payments on the… loan from September to November 2014, and again in January 2015, before subsequently defaulting on the loan.

“Grace was subsequently taken to court after the… loan could not be repaid, and (she was) declared bankrupt.”

According to court documents, the offenders also engaged other individuals to act as directors of other companies before defrauding Maybank and SCB of the remaining amount.

These other companies were Mansarover Import & Export, Bestcare, Juf Malsing Impex and Ottimo Group.

The DPP said: “It was undisputed that the five companies had no real commercial activities at any time. Each director gave undisputed testimony that they did not do business with the companies they acquired.

“Gina’s evidence that she never conducted business using the five companies also remained unchallenged. Under cross-examination, (Lee) agreed that the five companies had no real commercial activities at any time.”

During the trial, Lee claimed that he was not part of a conspiracy with Tan to defraud banks, and that he had been kept in the dark about the true nature of his actions during his involvement with her.

He will be sentenced in November.