Former DBS employee pleads guilty to CBT, cheating

SINGAPORE — In debt from gambling, former DBS branch relationship manager Eng Sze Keat used his position to cheat and steal more than S$700,000 from 11 victims, including his then-girlfriend, for about two years. He then left Singapore, surrendering himself only four years later.

Eng, 32, pleaded guilty on Tuesday (April 19) to 27 counts of cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery, transferring property and theft. Another 73 charges were taken into consideration.

The court heard that Eng fleeced mostly elderly customers or non-Singapore residents from 2009 to 2011.

As a relationship manager, Eng’s job was to sell unit trusts, insurance policies and foreign exchange products to existing DBS customers, assist customers in depositing or withdrawing cash, and handle administrative work.

He would get customers who agreed to purchase a policy or product to fill in the necessary application forms, but only told them to put in their personal particulars.

After assuring them that he would fill in the remaining details later, he would either slip in a fund transfer request form, fixed deposit transaction form or an MAS Electronic Payment System application form for the customers to sign, or forge their signatures on said forms. He would then fill them in with instructions to transfer the money to his friends’ or family’s bank accounts, including those of his former girlfriend and his mother.

When the money was transferred, Eng would ask them to transfer the money to his bank account or withdraw it in cash to pass to him.

On April 1, 2011, his former girlfriend lodged a police report alleging that Eng had used her details to apply for UOB and Citibank credit cards in 2009 without her consent. He had also taken and used her POSB credit card sometime in May 2010, using it to withdraw S$2,000.

In total, the loss on the credit card fraud offences amounted to S$28,053.10. Eng has since returned S$28,000 to his former girlfriend.

On Aug 15 that same year, DBS’ Compliance Services and Security Department lodged a report with the Commercial Affairs Department, alleging that Eng had made a number of unauthorised withdrawals from his clients’ accounts.

Furthermore, DBS could not contact or locate him as he had failed to report for work three days earlier. Investigations revealed that Eng left for China that day, and did not return to Singapore until June 18 last year. In his mitigation plea, Eng had written that he was heavily in debt from gambling, said lawyer Josephus Tan, who represented Eng.

Mr Tan also said that Eng surrendered himself because he was tired of being on the run and missed his family.

The case will be heard again on May 12.