{"id":22164,"date":"2025-12-22T16:21:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=22164"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:21:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:21:36","slug":"all-remaining-charges-withdrawn-for-second-man-linked-to-scam-in-which-bank-lost-over-1-79m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=22164","title":{"rendered":"All remaining charges withdrawn for second man linked to scam in which bank lost over $1.79m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013 A second man<a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/jail-for-5-men-linked-to-housing-loan-scam-bank-duped-into-disbursing-over-51m?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\"> linked to a housing loan scam<\/p>\n<p><\/a> has had all of his remaining charges withdrawn, with a district court then granting a discharge amounting to an acquittal\u00a0for them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">This means\u00a0Kok Chiew Leong,\u00a052, cannot be charged again with the same offences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Another man, identified as Bijabahadur Rai Shree Kantrai, 55, who was involved in the same ruse,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/remaining-charges-withdrawn-for-man-linked-to-scam-in-which-bank-lost-over-1-79m?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">was granted a similar discharge<\/p>\n<p><\/a> in November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The pair were part of a group of five people who worked together on a ruse that led to a bank being duped into disbursing mortgage loans totalling more than $5.1 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In an earlier statement, the police said that between 2014 and 2015, Rai devised a scheme to perpetrate mortgage loan frauds involving two properties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The bank then incurred a loss of over $1.79 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The fraud was eventually uncovered when nominee buyers linked to the ruse defaulted on the loans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Rai was earlier sentenced to 7\u00bd years\u2019 jail in August 2024 after he was convicted of multiple charges for offences including cheating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Kok, whose offences involved one of the properties, was sentenced to 4\u00bd years behind bars after the court found him guilty of a cheating charge and two counts of using forged documents as original copies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Kok\u2019s seven other charges were then slated to be dealt with at a later date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He later appealed against his conviction and sentence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Responding on Dec 22 to queries from The Straits Times, the Attorney-General\u2019s Chambers (AGC) said that in April, the High Court dismissed Kok\u2019s appeal against his conviction and sentence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Without revealing details, an AGC spokesperson added: \u201cAfter careful consideration of the facts and circumstances of the matter, including the sentences related to the charges for which Kok was convicted, the prosecution applied for a discharge amounting to an acquittal for the remaining charges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A district court granted it on Dec 16.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"tags-test-id\">\n<p><button data-testid=\"button-test-id\" class=\"layer-one border-default border interactive-button text-primary disabled:layer-disabled hover:disabled:layer-disabled default\" aria-label=\"button for Singapore courts\"><span class=\"font-button-md-semibold\">Singapore courts<\/span><\/button><button data-testid=\"button-test-id\" class=\"layer-one border-default border interactive-button text-primary disabled:layer-disabled hover:disabled:layer-disabled default\" aria-label=\"button for Crime\"><span class=\"font-button-md-semibold\">Crime<\/span><\/button><button data-testid=\"button-test-id\" class=\"layer-one border-default border interactive-button text-primary disabled:layer-disabled hover:disabled:layer-disabled default\" aria-label=\"button for Scams\"><span class=\"font-button-md-semibold\">Scams<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/all-remaining-charges-withdrawn-for-second-man-linked-to-scam-in-which-bank-lost-over-1-79m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 A second man linked to a housing loan scam has had all of his remaining charges withdrawn, with a district court then granting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}