Two more charged over S$1.5m scam using fake currency
SINGAPORE — Two more foreign nationals were charged in court yesterday over their involvement in a S$1.5 million scam that involved the use of counterfeit notes to buy a vessel.
SINGAPORE — Two more foreign nationals were charged in court yesterday over their involvement in a S$1.5 million scam that involved the use of counterfeit notes to buy a vessel.
Dutchman Nicolic Predrag, 45, and Frenchwoman Nikolic Dalia, 36, are accused of being the accomplices of David Weidmann and Iosif Kiss in cheating Oceanic Group Pte Ltd, a shipping company specialising in cruise ships, which has operations in Singapore, China and Hong Kong.
Weidmann, 36, a French national; and Kiss, 39, from Romania, were charged in court on Monday with dishonestly inducing Mr Daniel Chui Mun Yew, Oceanic Group’s founder and managing director, to authorise a commission of S$1.5 million in cash for the purchase of a vessel.
According to the police, Mr Chui was in France to close the sale of a vessel at around 8pm last Saturday. He collected a deposit, and authorised his Singapore office to pay a commission of S$1.5 million.
Weidmann and Kiss allegedly collected the money before Mr Chui discovered the deposit he had collected were in counterfeit notes. He called his office to stop the payment but was not in time.
Yesterday, the police said in a news release that officers from Clementi Police Division arrested Pregrag and Dalia at a hotel along Havelock Road on Tuesday. They were found with over S$730,000.
Previously, Weidmann and Kiss had more than S$400,000 on them when they were arrested at the Woodlands Checkpoint last Saturday night.
The quartet have been remanded for another week to assist in further investigations and will appear in court again next Monday.
If found guilty, they can each be jailed up to 10 years and fined.