|
In August 2003, CAD received a report from a bank that there were unauthorized withdrawals made from several of its accounts between March and August 2003. A total of $990,000 was remitted to overseas bank accounts that were opened under fictitious names. The bank discovered that customers' signatures have been forged and their correspondences were diverted. The perpetrator appeared to have committed a "perfect" crime as they did not leave any trail in the bank's computer system.
Nevertheless, the investigators persevered and through financial intelligence, new leads to the case were discovered. In May 2005, CAD received information on the whereabouts of the perpetrators of the crime. Ignatuis Teo Yaw Tiong and Goh Jen-nie were arrested. At the time of their arrests, Teo was running his business and Goh was a vice-president of the bank.
Our investigation revealed that in 2002, Teo and Goh were employees of the bank. Saddled with gambling debts, they hatched two plans to alleviate their financial situation. For Plan A, they will use customers' personal information to apply for credit cards and use them to settle their debts. However, it failed.
They then devised Plan B to set up overseas accounts using the names of their victims. Teo and Goh prepared letters and forged the signatures of the victims. The letters instructed the bank to transfer funds from their accounts to these fictitious overseas accounts. They transferred a total of $990,000.
In order to cover their tracks, Teo and Goh also forged the victims' signatures informing Bank B that they were changing address. The address provided was to a vacant house in Sembawang. Teo would retrieve the letters sent by the bank to the account holders.
Besides this, Teo and Goh had also applied for ATM cards from the fictitious foreign accounts to facilitate their withdrawals. The cards were sent to the same address in Sembawang. However, one of their ATM cards did not arrive. With the remaining foreign ATM cards, they withdrew monies in Malaysia and the United States. Teo had also used his friend's passport to enter Malaysia on one occasion.
During the course of our investigation, Goh returned $110,000 which she had received through the commission of the offences. On the other hand, Teo did not make any restitution. Teo was jailed five years whereas Goh was jailed for three years for her role.
|