S$40m SkillsFuture fraud: Man jailed nearly 3 years for laundering S$889,000

SINGAPORE — The third of five key players in a syndicate, believed to be behind the largest case of fraud committed against a public institution here, was sentenced to almost three years’ jail on Tuesday (June 4).

Manickam Pragasam, a 58-year-old Singaporean, admitted to cashing S$889,000 worth of cheques on the instructions of another syndicate member. He did not know that he was helping to launder part of the S$40 million that would eventually be cheated from government agency SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG).

Manickam, who worked as a cleaner, pleaded guilty last month to three charges of money laundering. He was sentenced to 33 months behind bars on Tuesday, backdated to his date of remand on Feb 26, 2019.

Two other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

Besides Manickam, Roger Quek Si Guang, 33, was jailed three-and-a-half years and Lee Chi Wai, 33, was jailed five years and eight months for their key roles in the case.

The other two members, Lee Lai Leng, 40, and her husband Ng Cheng Kwee, 42, are in remand. Lee Lai Leng is Lee Chi Wai’s older sister, while Ng has been described by prosecutors as one of the main perpetrators of the crimes.

Eight more individuals have also been charged for their alleged roles in the scam, including 50-year-old Vincent Peter, who is said to have instructed Manickam to cash in the cheques.

HOW THEY RIGGED THE SUBSIDIES

Under the SkillsFuture Course Fee Grant scheme, an eligible Singapore business entity may apply to SSG for subsidies if its employees had undergone skills training courses with registered training providers.

Between May and October 2017, six firms and three training providers — which were all later found to be dormant entities — submitted 8,386 fraudulent applications for course fee grants, as well as 8,391 corresponding claims to SSG.

In total, the agency disbursed S$39.9 million to the nine shell companies, which were later traced to the syndicate.

More than S$27.8 million in cash were then withdrawn by syndicate members from the companies’ bank accounts, through bank transfers or cash cheques.

SSG made a police report on Nov 1, 2017. Last year, the agency strengthened its fraud detection systems with data analytics to detect bogus claims more quickly.

WHAT MANICKAM DID

The court heard that Manickam first got to know Vincent in 2011 and they became friends.

In September 2017, Vincent approached Manickam to say he would pay him an unspecified sum to get jobs done. Manickam agreed as he was unemployed and needed money to get by.

That same month, Vincent told Manickam to cash cheques from corporate Maybank accounts. He accompanied Manickam to the bank on both days, but waited outside while Manickam cashed the cheques alone.

Vincent told Manickam to lie about being an employee of the respective companies receiving the cheque payments, if the bank officers questioned him.

Manickam handed the cash to Vincent afterwards, and claimed that he did not know what Vincent did with it.

On Sept 12, 2017, Manickam cashed two cheques: One was S$60,000, the other was S$700,000. Vincent then gave him S$20 in return.

A week later, Vincent got him to cash a S$129,000 cheque.

Manickam did not ask Vincent where the money came from, nor did he ask why Vincent needed him to cash the cheques, or why such large sums of money were being cashed.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Ivan Chua and Gordon Lim noted that there was no evidence of Manickam being aware of the scheme, nor did he receive any substantial payments for his involvement.

However, they said that he “played a significant role” in laundering the syndicate’s benefits from their criminal conduct, which involved substantial sums of money.

For each money laundering charge, Manickam could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined up to S$500,000.