Public Prosecutor v Koh Seah Wee and another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tay Yong Kwang J
• Judgment Date: 04 November 2011
• Neutral Citation: [2011] SGHC 240
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 36 of 2011
• Published date: 14 December 2011
• Year: 2011
• Hearing Date: 28 October 2011,04 November 2011
• Plaintiff Counsel: Aedit Abdullah and Jean Chan, DPPs (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Ravinderpal Singh and Rina Kalpanath (Kalpanath & Co),Subhas Anandan and Sunil Sudheesan (RHT Law LLP),Tan Chee Meng, SC (Wong Partnership) on watching brief,Loh Kia Meng (Rodyk & Davidson) on watching brief
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing
• Citation: [2011] SGHC 240

Tay Yong Kwang J: The accused persons

The accused persons were former colleagues in the Singapore Land Authority (“SLA”). At the material time, Koh Seah Wee (“Koh”), now 41 years old, was the deputy director of the SLA’s Technology and Infrastructure (“TI”) department while Lim Chai Meng (“Lim”), now aged 38, was the said department’s manager, a position subordinate to that of Koh’s.

Between 11 February 1997 and 20 July 2004, Koh was a consultant in the information technology department of the Supreme Court. From 21 July 2004 to 11 March 2007, he worked as a consultant in the information technology department of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (“IPOS”). He then moved to the SLA’s TI department and worked there until 31 March 2010. For the next two months, he worked in the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore.

Lim was employed as a manager in the TI department of SLA from 1 July 2006 to 30 April 2010. He resigned from SLA on 30 April 2010 and remained unemployed thereafter, not bothering to look for a job as (according to his defence counsel) he knew it was a matter of time that the law would close in on him.

The charges

Koh faced a total of 372 charges. He pleaded guilty to 55 charges of which 46 concerned the offences of cheating (s 420 Penal Code Cap 224) or conspiracy to cheat (s 420 read with s 109 Penal Code). Nine charges related to concealment or conversion of properties representing his benefits from criminal conduct punishable under s 47(6) of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (Cap 65A) (“Confiscation of Benefits Act”). The two categories of offences will be referred to hereafter as the cheating and the money laundering offences. In addition, Koh admitted and consented to the remaining 317 charges involving cheating and money laundering offences to be taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.

Lim face a total of 309 charges. He pleaded guilty to 49 charges. Out of these, 40 charges concerned the offence of conspiracy to cheat SLA and one charge involved a conspiracy to cheat a finance company, Sing Investments & Finance Limited (“Sing Investments”). The other 8 charges were for money laundering offences. Lim also admitted and consented to the remaining 260 charges of cheating and money laundering offences to be taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.

The factual background Koh and Lim

On 15 June 2010 (after both Koh and Lim were no longer working in SLA), SLA lodged a police report alleging that goods and services procured through some purchase orders put up by Lim and subsequently approved by Koh were fictitious. The Commercial Affairs Department (“CAD”) commenced investigations which led to the discovery of more offences committed by Koh during his earlier employment in the Supreme Court and IPOS. The investigations also revealed that there were seven accomplices who aided Koh and Lim in the cheating offences, the most notable of whom was a man named Ho Yen Teck (“Ho”), aged 31, the owner of seven sole proprietorships and a full-time sales executive of a local company at the material time.

Lim was the procurement/verifying officer responsible for the requisition of goods and services required by SLA’s TI department. The procurement procedure to be followed depended on the value of the goods and services in question. For values of up to $3,000, Lim, the vendors or an in-house third party vendor would submit the invoices directly to SLA’s finance department. For values of between $3,001 and $80,000, Lim would create an Invitation-to-Quote (“ITQ”) in the government procurement portal known as GeBiz.

Part of Lim’s scope of work was to identify the business needs of the TI department and to justify those needs to Koh. Once Koh gave the permission to send out an ITQ, Lim would put up the requirements and specifications on GeBiz. When the quotations were received, Lim would make recommendations to Koh on whom to award the contract to. Koh could approve contracts of up to $60,000 in value.

Once Koh approved the contract, a purchase order would be generated and sent to the successful vendor. The vendor would send an invoice to SLA which would forward the invoice to the TI department for Lim to verify and for Koh to approve for payment. Upon Koh’s approval, SLA’s finance department would pay the money to the vendor.

Koh and Lim would rig the quotation results by arranging for their own “vendors” (the accomplices) to offer the lowest quotations which Lim would recommend and Koh would approve. Lim would also assist in preparing fictitious invoices for some of the “vendors” for submission to SLA’s finance department.

For contracts not exceeding $3,000 in value, Lim would ask for quotations directly from the vendor if the price of the item in question was known and was reasonable. If the price was not known, Lim had the discretion to ask other vendors to submit quotations. The successful vendor would submit an invoice to Lim who would pass it on to the finance department. Alternatively, the vendor would submit an invoice directly to the finance department. The finance department would then send a system-generated email to Lim to verify that delivery of goods had been made or the service rendered. Upon Lim’s verification, an email alert would be sent to Koh for his approval to make payment to the vendor. For such lower value contracts, Lim would provide the descriptions and the amounts to the “vendor” for submission of invoice for payment.

All the specifications listed in GeBiz and the lower value contracts were not required by SLA and were fictitious in one or more of the following ways in that they were for: maintenance of equipment which SLA did not have; maintenance of equipment for which SLA already had existing agreements with other vendors; goods and services which SLA did not need; duplicated specifications; and no goods or services were actually supplied. Through this fraudulent scheme, contracts were awarded to the “vendors” which had no intention of fulfilling them and which were not able to in any case. 282 such contracts were awarded to 11 “vendors” which were merely façades operated by the seven accomplices. As a consequence, SLA was dishonestly induced to pay the “vendors” a sum of more than $12.1m. Once payment was made by SLA, the money would be withdrawn from the respective vendors’ accounts and the cash would then be handed over to Koh. The accomplices would be given a share of the money but the bulk of it would go to Koh and Lim. The prosecution was not able to state the proportions of the loot as between Koh and Lim.

Koh

The investigations conducted by CAD uncovered earlier wrongdoing by Koh when he was working at IPOS and the Supreme Court. He committed fraud at these organizations by dishonestly concealing his financial interests in the vendors submitting quotations which were evaluated by him and submitted for approval by his superiors. Further, in most of the 15 contracts in question at IPOS, the quotations by his accomplice were submitted after the close of ITQ when all other quotations were already known to Koh, thus enabling his accomplice to submit the lowest bids. More than half of the contracts were for goods and services not required by IPOS and were fictitious in one or more of the ways set out at [12](b), (c) and (d) above. A total of $254,142 was paid out in these contracts.

Koh, who is married and has a young daughter, used the fraudulently obtained money to buy private properties in his or in his wife’s name, to open bank accounts in the names of family members, withdrawing the cash soon after that, to invest in unit trusts and shares, to buy luxury goods with high retention values and to indulge in expensive cars such as a limited edition of a Lamborghini LP 670 SV (with number plate SDP 88R), a Mercedes Benz E350 Coupe (registered as SJH 8T) and a Mercedes Benz E200 (registered as SDP 40C). The first two cars were registered in his wife’s name while the third was registered in his mother’s name. All three cars were seized and subsequently sold as they were depreciating assets.

The CAD managed to seize properties and cash from Koh and his family worth some $7.54m (not including a number of luxury watches, luxury bags and jewellery which have not been valued). Out of this amount, some $1.5m is the subject of adverse claims, the merits of which have not yet been determined.

Lim

Lim is married and has four children (two of whom were from his wife’s previous marriage). He used the illegally obtained money in much the same ways as Koh did. In fact, both accused persons went together to visit the showroom of the condominium called Optima@Tanah Merah where Koh purchased unit 08-14 in his wife’s name and Lim booked unit 09-14. This turned out to be a fairly good investment as 09-14 was resold at a modest profit. Lim also bought another private property with his wife.

Lim deposited some of his criminal proceeds into the bank accounts of his family members and withdrew the cash soon thereafter. He also opened a bank account in his own name for the purpose of depositing cash obtained from cheating SLA.

Like Koh, Lim also bought expensive cars. However, unlike Koh, Lim traded in one car for another and did not have three at the same time. The series of cars included an Audi TT Coupe 2.0, a Porsche Cayman S Tip and a second-hand Ferrari F430 F1 (bearing the registration plate SJV 82D). It was in the process of buying the Ferrari that the cheating offence against Sing Investments was committed.

The Ferrari cost some $721,000 and Lim needed a loan of $350,000 loan from Sing Investments. Based on the salary stated in his official payslip, he would not have qualified for such an amount in loan. The owner of the car dealer company selling the Ferrari helped Lim to create a false...