Bankrupt S'pore property agent, 51, fakes sales & dupes fellow agents to get advance commission payouts of up to S$91,600

A bankrupt property agent duped his fellow agents into co-broking falsified sales, using them to receive advance commissions and leaving them to deal with the aftermath.

CNA reported that Cheong En Kiong, 51, pleaded guilty on Sep. 8, 2026 to four charges including forgery, cheating and receiving benefits from criminal conduct.

Other outstanding charges will be considered during sentencing.

According to court documents seen by Mothership, Cheong has been an undischarged bankrupt since 2019, meaning that he is obligated to make monthly payments to his creditors and is placed under certain financial restrictions.

Cheong was an agent under ERA Real Estate Singapore when he committed the offences.

According to CNA, he is no longer listed on the Council for Estate Agencies' public register.

The scheme

Cheong exploited the payment system of LytePay, a Monetary Authority of Singapore-licensed payment institution. It disburses advance commissions to real estate salespersons in exchange for a processing fee.

To do so, a real estate agent would first have to submit documents of the property sale to LytePay, which then delivers the advance commission to the agent.

After the seller of the property pays the commission due to the real estate company, the company would deduct the advance commission already received by the agent and pay the remainder to LytePay.

Cheong falsified property sale documents and used other agents' LytePay accounts to receive advance commissions with no actual sale taking place.

The Prudential unit

In June 2022, Cheong asked a fellow property agent, named only in court documents as A1, to be the co-broker for the sale of a unit at Prudential Towers.

The unit was worth about S$11 million.

A1, who is 38 years old, had known Cheong for a decade at the time. She had no prior experience with a sale of this magnitude.

Cheong told her that he was unable to submit an advance commission request to LytePay himself, and asked her to submit the sale documents to LytePay instead. He promised her a S$5,000 cut as well as the Medisave and income tax for the sale.

At the time, she was recovering from injuries sustained in an accident.

A1 believed that Cheong was offering her a legitimate opportunity. Unbeknownst to her, Cheong had forged the signatures in the documents, using the signature and personal details of a former client to falsify the sale.

While the unit was left unsold, A1 submitted the documents to LytePay, who disbursed S$91,653.39 to her.

After deducting her share and the processing fee, she transferred S$83,554 to Cheong.

He used the money to repay his debts.

Around six months later, ERA discovered that the purported buyer of the property had not sent them the commission owed. The company's internal investigations revealed Cheong's fraudulent actions, and he was issued with a warning.

ERA asked both Cheong and A1 to repay the advance commission of S$91,653.39 that they received from LytePay.

To date, Cheong has only paid back S$10,000 to S$12,000 of the owed sum, leaving A1 to bear the remaining amount.

LytePay issued a statutory demand to A1 to claw back the money, and has deducted A1's commissions from her other sales to offset the balance.

A1 has asked Cheong to pay her multiple times, but he has not done so.

The Lucky Plaza unit

This was not the only time that Cheong pulled off the scheme.

In October 2025, Cheong approached a client, named only as B1 in court documents, who was the owner of a commercial property in Lucky Plaza.

He lied to B1 that there was a buyer for the property, and asked him for his signature to exercise the purchase.

B1 signed on some blank documents that he provided.

Cheong then approached his friend and fellow real estate agent, known as B4 in court documents, to be the unwitting co-broker in the sale.

B4, a 63-year-old agent with OrangeTee & Tie, was suffering from prostate cancer at the time.

Nevertheless, he agreed to help Cheong after being told about his financial woes.

As before, Cheong deceived him into thinking that the sale of the Lucky Plaza unit was legitimate, forging the signatures of some of his other separate clients in the documents.

According to court documents, this was actually not the first time that Cheong had deceived B4.

Earlier in July 2025, Cheong had in fact roped B4 into being a co-broker for the false sale of yet another unit at Prudential Tower, on the eleventh floor.

B4 submitted the documents for the Lucky Plaza property sale to OrangeTee, requesting an advance commission via LytePay.

LytePay delivered S$7,955 to him. He then transferred S$4,700 to Cheong.

A few months later on October 2025, OrangeTee sent a letter to the purported buyer of the eleventh floor unit at Prudential Tower, reminding them that they still had about S$135,000 outstanding in agency fees.

The buyer informed OrangeTee that no such deal occurred.

After conducting internal investigations, OrangeTee discovered the fraudulent transactions of both the Prudential Tower and Lucky Plaza unit sales, and fired B4.

B4 was made to bear the full amount from the advance commissions doled out through LytePay, totalling S$86,014.

Until now, Cheong has made no restitution to OrangeTee, B4, or LytePay.

Aftermath

Those involved made police reports in October 2025.

Cheong has been remanded since April 2026.

The deputy public prosecutor sought 24.5 to 28 months' imprisonment, noting that he made use of his friends for his personal gain, reported CNA.

She said he had not just omitted information but actively deceived the victims, leaving them with "substantial financial obligations to LytePay".

Furthermore, he displayed a pattern of repeated offending, having defrauded those involved via the same means on separate occasions.

CNA reported that the Cheong's lawyer asked for 18.5 to 21.5 months' jail instead, citing his immediate guilty plea and full cooperation with the authorities.

The case was subsequently adjourned to October 2026 for sentencing.

For cheating or forgery to commit cheating, he could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

For acquiring property that are the benefits of criminal conduct, he could be jailed for up to 10 years, fined up to S$500,000, or both.