SINGAPORE – A con man used different schemes to cheat 37 victims of more than $1.4 million in total from July 2018 to October 2023.
On Dec 23, Long Junsheng, 40, was sentenced to four years and 11 months’ jail after he pleaded guilty to multiple cheating charges.
Court documents state that from 2017 to 2023, he worked as a salesman at a company called J-Workz Office Solutions, which dealt with office products.
Deputy public prosecutors Darren Sim and Nicole Tay said that in 2018, Long began promoting accounting software to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on J-Workz’s behalf to earn commissions.
He would lie, claiming that the software and its associated costs would be covered by a government-linked initiative – Enterprise Singapore’s Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG).
The initiative is aimed at helping Singapore companies improve their productivity through IT solutions, and Long claimed he would help the victims to apply for such grants.
Long made company directors sign a form and make payment, promising that once the administrative processes were completed, the firms would be reimbursed accordingly.
The document was a 60-month leasing agreement with GC Lease Singapore, a leasing company, of which J-Workz was a client.
The DPPs said: “The company directors would have to endorse a delivery order which confirmed that they had received the software from J-Workz, although this was false.
“The company directors were told that the processing of the software purchase and/or the application of government grants could take place only after the said documents were signed.”
Long would then take these documents to GC Lease.
Believing that the affected companies had received the products, GC Lease disbursed the agreed-upon sums to J-Workz.
GC Lease would also continue to collect money from the affected companies on a monthly basis, the court heard.
J-Workz would pay Long the entire disbursed sum as his commission.
