Electronics manufacturing firm's ex director charged with cheating five banks of more than S$10m

SINGAPORE — A 60-year-old former director of an electronics manufacturing firm was charged in court on Friday (Dec 20) with cheating five banks into granting more than S$10 million in credit facilities to his company from 2007 to 2011.

So Seow Tiong faces 75 counts of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property under Section 420 of the Penal Code. If convicted, he could be jailed up to 10 years and fined on each count.

The five banks involved are: United Overseas Bank (UOB), OCBC, Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank), ABN Amro Bank and Chang Hwa Commercial Bank.

So’s charge sheets allege that the banks were deceived into believing that his firm SPE Technology (Singapore) was buying finished printed circuit boards from its purported supplier, FSL Business Enterprise.

The prosecution is alleging that no such transactions took place between the two companies, the police said in a press release on Friday.

So was said to have issued instructions for the supplier’s invoices to be submitted to the banks to support the request to use their credit facilities from March 2007 to January 2011, the police said

The banks disbursed the money — some S$3.7 million in Singapore currency and another US$4.7 million (S$6.37 million) — to FSL Business Enterprise based on the invoices submitted to them. Those sums were later transferred to SPE Technology, the police said.

Based on calculations from the charge sheets, UOB appeared to have disbursed the largest sum to the firm — about S$5.15 million over 35 transactions.

ABN disbursed about S$1.89 million over 11 transactions; OCBC disbursed about S$1.15 million over another 11 transactions; Maybank disbursed about S$1.14 million over 13 transactions; and Chang Hwa, some S$973,000 over five transactions.

So is out on S$30,000 bail and will return to court on Jan 17 for a further mention of the case.