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SINGAPORE \u2013 A Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) regular illegally obtained nearly $1.9 million in total from his adoptive father and others to fund his gambling addiction.<\/p>\n
The offences linked to his adoptive father alone involved more than $1.6 million, including over half a million dollars from the older man\u2019s CPF account.<\/p>\n
Tay Yi Cong, 29, went overseas when he knew his adoptive father was in contact with the police, only to return to Singapore after an elderly South Korean shopkeeper he confided in advised him to surrender.<\/p>\n
On Aug 13, Tay was sentenced to seven years\u2019 jail, after pleading guilty to two counts each of cheating and cheating by personation. He also admitted to three theft charges.<\/p>\n
Twenty-eight other charges were considered during his sentencing.<\/p>\n
Besides his adoptive father, he also targeted other victims including his own younger brother and an SAF colleague.<\/p>\n
He has since made $37,700 in restitution to his 62-year-old adoptive father.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old offender was a senior medic in the SAF when he committed his offences between December 2023 and June 2024.<\/p>\n
Deputy Public Prosecutor Ariel Tan stated in court documents that Tay had a gambling habit.<\/p>\n
By December 2023, he incurred about $60,000 worth of debt to multiple banks and had no means to repay them.<\/p>\n
Despite this, he still wanted to continue gambling. Tay then decided to apply for bank loans and credit cards by using his adoptive father\u2019s particulars.<\/p>\n
Aware that the older man\u2019s mobile phone did not require a password to unlock it, he used the device whenever it was unattended to access the websites of five banks to apply for credit cards and loans.<\/p>\n
Tay then accessed loan accounts that were in his adoptive father\u2019s name and transferred the funds to his own bank account.<\/p>\n
He also used the credit cards he received to settle his own expenses.<\/p>\n
In total, he cheated multiple banks of more than $380,000.<\/p>\n
When these offences went undetected, Tay went on to transfer more than $1.27 million of his adoptive father\u2019s money to his own bank account without the man\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n
This amount included $533,800 from the adoptive father\u2019s account held in the Central Provident Fund (CPF).<\/p>\n
Before accessing the CPF funds, Tay used an iPad to scan the older man\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
The victim did not check what the scan was for, and Tay then changed the daily withdrawal limit of his adoptive father\u2019s CPF account without the man\u2019s authorisation.<\/p>\n
Between Jan 30 and Feb 9, 2024, the older man noticed that the balance in his bank account was lower than what he recalled.<\/p>\n
He checked the transactions and saw that transfers were made to Tay\u2019s bank account.<\/p>\n
He called his bank\u2019s hotline about the matter, and Tay overheard the conversation as the older man was using the loudspeaker mode on the phone.<\/p>\n
Fearing that his offending acts would be discovered, Tay later pretended to be staff members of two different banks and phoned his adoptive father, claiming that the banks were facing issues.<\/p>\n
The older man then confided in Tay, who offered to make a police report on his behalf.<\/p>\n
Instead, the offender went on to forge a police report, which he showed his adoptive father.<\/p>\n
On March 11, 2024, the older man discovered during a meeting with his insurance agent that there were withdrawals from his CPF funds.<\/p>\n
The victim submitted an inquiry to the CPF Board about the matter, and one of its customer service executives alerted the authorities.<\/p>\n
The next day, a police officer called the adoptive father. Again, Tay overheard the conversation because the loudspeaker feature was used.<\/p>\n
Following this, Tay boarded to flight to Taiwan on March 13, 2024.<\/p>\n
Tay was in South Korea when he encountered an elderly shopkeeper who reminded him of his late grandmother.<\/p>\n
By then, he was running out of funds to sustain himself.<\/p>\n
The DPP said: \u201cHe confessed his offending acts to the elderly shopkeeper, and she suggested that he turn himself in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tay eventually booked a flight back to Singapore on June 17, 2024, and was arrested at Changi Airport.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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SINGAPORE \u2013 A Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) regular illegally obtained nearly $1.9 million in total from his adoptive father and others to fund his gambling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73615,"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-76550","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\/76550","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=76550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}