Two Singaporean men, aged 48 and 66, were charged in court on Jul. 6, 2023, with offences relating to cheating and forgery.
This was after they were accused of dishonestly concealing from the Ministry of National Development (MND) that the older man's company had a discount arrangement with that of the younger man in respect of works performed at the MND building, the Singapore Police Force said in a Jul. 6 press release.
At the time of the offence, the 66-year-old Tan Kia Lim was a director of then-term contractor engaged by the MND for mechanical and electrical maintenance works.
The 48-year-old Choo Chiang Wei was a director of a subcontractor that was engaged by the then-term contractor for the works undertaken in the MND building.
As a result of their alleged criminal conspiracy, MND was allegedly deceived into paying approximately S$260,000 to the then-term contractor for the impugned works between 2016 and 2018.
MND was also allegedly unaware that the then-term contractor had been paying discounted prices to the subcontractor.
Furthermore, even though the term contract furnished to MND required the quotations from the subcontractors to be net of all discounts, the discount arrangement was allegedly concealed dishonestly from MND.
Besides his cheating charge, Choo is also facing another 67 charges for allegedly conspiring with his staff to forge 67 quotations in the name of other subcontractors with the intention of using the alleged forged quotations for the purpose of cheating MND.
The offence of cheating carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years and a fine.
The offence of forgery for the purpose of cheating carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years and a fine.
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