“I’m ready.” These were the two words which Long Yaw Nan (Long), a former remisier of DBS Vickers Securities Singapore Pte Ltd (DBSV), uttered at the end of every statement recorded from him. He had realised that the offences he committed would land him in jail.
As a remisier, Long executed trading instructions on behalf of his clients and updated his clients with company research reports. Occasionally, he would extend invitations to his clients to take up share placements underwritten by DBSV.
Long’s trail of misdeeds was first uncovered by the attentive eyes of a bank officer of Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited. Long had wanted to present a cheque of $30,000 for clearance at a bank counter. The cheque appeared to have been tampered with. Further checks by the bank revealed that the account payee on the cheque had been altered to Long’s name.
The issuer of the cheque, DBS Bank Limited (DBS), together with DBSV, decided to conduct an internal inquiry. DBSV had actually issued the said cheque to a client after processing a cash withdrawal form submitted by Long. When both companies confronted him with the cheque, Long was evasive in his responses. DBS and DBSV thus decided to lodge a formal complaint with the authorities. On the same day, Long suddenly left Singapore. He told his peers and family members that he was “taking a break”.
More misdeeds were uncovered during the course of investigation. Long had hatched an almost perfect crime. He first forged the signature of his client on some application forms to Singapore Post Limited (Singpost) for mail redirection service. He also forged the signature of the client on DBSV cash withdrawal forms to withdraw cash from his client’s margin account without the latter’s knowledge.
Not knowing that the cash withdrawal forms had been forged, DBSV processed the requests and issued cheques in the name of Long’s client. As the client had previously authorised Long to collect cheques issued to him on his behalf, Long collected the cheques and altered the account payee from his client to himself. Long used the same modus operandus to withdraw monies from his client’s margin trading account on several occasions.
Apart from withdrawing cash from his client’s account without his authorisation, Long also executed trades in the client’s margin trading account without his knowledge. As the original margin trading account statements would reflect the unauthorised withdrawals and unauthorised trades, Long forged the mail redirection service form to intercept the statements of the margin trading account. He then prepared forged statements of margin trading account and had them hand delivered to the client. The forged statements excluded the unauthorised cash withdrawals and unauthorised trades he had made.
In all, he forged nine cheques totalling $163,970 intended for his client, seven mail redirection service application forms and thirteen DBSV monthly margin statements. Out of the nine tampered cheques, eight cheques totalling $133,970 were credited into Long’s personal bank accounts for personal use.
As a remisier, it was one of his responsibilities to deal in securities for his clients. Long however went one step further and executed trades in two of his other clients’ trading accounts for his own benefit. He covered these misdeeds by coming up with excuses that the trades were erroneously entered into the client’s account. By doing so, Long had operated as a deceit upon DBSV under the Securities and Futures Act.
Long confided in his sister about his problem while he was “taking his break”. He returned to Singapore after he took his sister’s advice to turn himself in. Long was eventually charged with 51 counts of offences committed under the Penal Code and the Securities and Futures Act. The offences included forgery and its related offences, cheating, criminal breach of trust and unauthorised trading. Long pleaded guilty to 16 charges proceeded on by the prosecution. The remaining 35 charges were taken in consideration for sentencing purposes. In passing sentence, District Judge Liew Thiam Leng commented that the securities-related offences had created a deep impact on the securities industry and they had affected the confidence level and the interests of the investors. Having considered the severity of the matter, DJ Liew sentenced Long to 42 months imprisonment.