Man, 68, charged with duping woman into giving him S$1.5m as security for S$15m loan
SINGAPORE — A 68-year-old man was charged on Friday (Jan 7) with cheating a woman into transferring S$1.5 million to him as collateral for a S$15 million loan that purportedly did not materialise.
Wong Poh Kun, a Singaporean, allegedly deceived Ms Maureen Li into believing that she was transferring her money to a bank account owned by investment firm Asia Alternative Fund, court documents stated.
The police, without naming Wong or Ms Li, said in a statement on Thursday night that the victim was believed to have been asked to make the payment to a loan broker to secure the loan. In return, she would receive the loan in tranches.
Investigations later revealed that Wong allegedly kept S$1.25 million and paid the remaining S$250,000 to the unnamed loan broker.
“Thereafter, (Wong) remained uncontactable and purportedly failed to deliver on the loan,” the police said.
The court allowed the prosecution’s request for Wong to remain on remand for a week for investigations.
A police prosecutor said that Wong was required to assist in recovering case exhibits. He is also believed to be involved in other similar cases, the prosecutor added.
The court also heard that Wong would be handed a fresh charge under the Bankruptcy Act. No further details were given.
Appearing in court via video-link from his place of remand, Wong said that the court case against him was “unfounded” because he was already working on returning the money to Ms Li.
Saying that he has been cooperative with the police investigations thus far, he asked not to be remanded so that he can make arrangements to repay Ms Li and settle his ongoing business transactions.
He added that he has various medical conditions.
Wong said that he has been a "respectable businessman in Singapore", and claimed to have completed multi-million-dollar development projects in Singapore, Malaysia and China.
"So why would I cheat someone for a small sum of S$1.5 million?” he asked.
Wong will return to court next Friday.
If found guilty of deceiving a person into sending him money, he could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
