Woman jailed for cheating elderly pump attendant of S$137,000, using Lee Kuan Yew’s name

• Tan Hwee Ngo swindled Mr Tan Soy Kiang, now aged 76, over about 13 years
• Her scheme stopped when his niece returned from Australia and suspected something was amiss
• Her lawyer said that she will be appealing against her conviction and jail sentence

SINGAPORE — A 71-year-old dishwasher, who tricked an elderly petrol pump attendant into parting with his Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings and some of his monthly salary for 13 years, was sentenced to two years and three months’ jail on Monday (Aug 31).

Tan Hwee Ngo was found guilty of 169 cheating charges last month. Her lawyer, KV Sudeep Kumar, said that she will be appealing against her conviction and sentence. She is on bail pending the appeal.

She had used the names of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and other prominent figures to deceive Mr Tan Soy Kiang, now aged 76.

Mr Tan handed over at least S$500 a month from his salary of between S$700 and S$1,300. He was cheated out of a total amount of about S$137,000.

Being an avid gambler, Tan needed money to sustain her habit, District Judge Terence Tay previously said.

She swindled Mr Tan from June 1999 until December 2013 when he worked two jobs. Besides being a pump attendant, he worked as a cleaner or factory worker.

Mr Tan’s longtime good friend Boo Sok Hiang — who died of heart disease in 2016 — acted as a middleman to hand over the money to Tan.

‘CLEARLY MOTIVATED BY GREED’

Earlier when convicting Tan, District Judge Tay said that her defence was “little more than a bare denial”.

For example, she had denied speaking to a reporter from The New Paper in 2015 even when she was photographed doing so.

The judge added then: “With all due respect to (Tan), who is a Pioneer Generation Singaporean, she was unabashed at using her age as both a sword and a shield to levy unfounded allegations at the investigation officers and to portray herself as a hapless victim of the late Madam Boo’s false allegations.”

When sentencing Tan on Monday, the judge ruled that she had carefully planned and consistently executed her offences, while clearly motivated by greed.

She has made “negligible restitution” of a few thousand dollars.

Nevertheless, he found that there was no evidence of her directly benefitting from or misappropriating Mr Tan’s CPF savings. He had withdrawn all of it — S$53,131 — in June 1999.

However, the judge also noted that Mr Tan’s funds were more accessible by virtue of being in his bank account. Mr Tan had handed over his bank card and its PIN to Boo because he was too busy to make the withdrawals himself.

While Tan is elderly, the judge said that she does not appear to suffer from any particular health condition apart from chronic illnesses for which she takes medication.

Jail does not seem like a “particularly onerous” punishment especially as the life expectancy of the wider population has “greatly increased”, and the term should not be “crushing” based on her age, District Judge Tay added.

'VULNERABLE TO EXPLOITATION'

Mr Tan, who has been a pump attendant at the Esso petrol kiosk along Lorong 2 Toa Payoh since 1992, became acquainted with Tan sometime before 1999.

Six of his employers who managed the kiosk testified that he was simple-minded, a hard worker and did not have a temper.

A 2015 Institute of Mental Health report stated that he could understand the nature of court proceedings but his mild intellectual disability “made him vulnerable to exploitation”.

Mr Tan stopped handing over S$500 from his monthly salary after his niece, Ms Pamela Lim, returned to Singapore from Australia in 2012.

The real estate agent testified during the trial that she grew worried about what her uncle was doing with his earnings, and that he sometimes tried to borrow money from her or her husband.

Mr Tan used to live alone in a Toa Payoh flat, but began living with Ms Lim’s family in 2013.

When Ms Lim asked him why he was borrowing money from them, he replied that he owed the Government money because of a “failed business”.

Deciding to confront the unknown woman who had taken her uncle to the CPF building in Bishan, Ms Lim and her husband accompanied Mr Tan to meet her on Feb 4, 2014, after he received his salary in cash from his supervisor at the petrol station.

Ms Lim recorded about 15 minutes of the meeting among the four of them on her mobile phone. The video clips were played in court.

During their conversation, which was in a mix of Teochew and Mandarin, Boo said that she had returned the money to the Government.

She also alleged that she and Tan had a “failed business” with Yeo Hiap Seng, a prominent Singaporean beverage company, which meant that they owed money to the Government.

The next day, five of them — Ms Lim, her husband, Mr Tan, Boo and Tan — met at a fast-food outlet in Toa Payoh to discuss the matter. Ms Lim also recorded parts of the meeting, which were played in court.

For cheating, Tan could have been jailed for up to 10 years or fined, or both.