Five people — suspected to be members of a criminal syndicate — have been charged with multiple offenses in a case involving the largest amount of money defrauded from a public institution in Singapore. The scam involved making fraudulent SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) claims worth about S$40 million (US$29.7 million).
TODAY reported that two men and two women aged 30 to 59 faced charges for alleged offenses like fraud, forgery, and corruption in court last month, while the fifth suspect, a 41-year-old man, was charged in court today.
In a news release today, SSG said the offenses included “engaging in a conspiracy to submit forged documents to fraudulently obtain training subsidies from SSG and to conceal the benefits from such criminal conduct.”
The police have seized “substantial cash” and frozen several bank accounts involved in the case.
“Preliminary police investigation reveals that the criminal syndicate behind these fraudulent claims operated an organized network that utilized nine business entities, comprising employer companies and training providers, to submit the fraudulent claims,” the release added.
According to Channel NewsAsia, SSG discovered the anomalies in claims for training grants at the end of October this year, and immediately suspended all payments of grants to the nine businesses. The case was then reported to the police.
Since then, SSG has tightened its processes and implemented fraud analytics, as well as conducted an extensive review of its system.
But this is just the latest — and biggest — fraud involving SkillsFuture to emerge in public consciousness. This past February, SSG surfaced a case — which is still under investigation — of 4,400 Singaporeans making bogus claims amounting to about S$2.2 million for a single course.
Five months after that, four men involved with a training provider were charged with fraudulent SkillsFuture claims amounting to more than S$70,000 (US$52,000) for courses that were never conducted.
