HE CONSPIRED with missing lawyer David Rasif to overstate flat valuations in clients’ applications for bank loans, thereby convincing banks and the CPF Board into providing higher loan amounts.In the process, the scam, involving the sale of 22 properties, netted a sum close to $1 million.
Yesterday, Goh Chong Liang, 37, a former director of a real estate company, pleaded guilty to his role in the scam. He had committed the 22 offences between December 2003 and September 2004.
The extent of the scam was uncovered by the Commercial Affairs Department soon after Goh was first convicted and jailed in 2005 for another offence.
The court was told that Goh, after showing buyers the flat for sale, would propose to the sellers’ agent a higher price. This inflated price included purported “renovation costs” for the flat.
For example, the sales price of a flat at Block 327 Tah Ching Road (picture) was inflated by $65,000 during a transaction in April, 2004. The sum was then paid to Danis Interior Design — a “shell” business Goh had set up to receive cashback monies on the pretext of carrying out renovation work.
Payment for these “renovations” would then be made through Rasif’s law firm, which would then deduct a share, as “legal fees”, from this amount.
However, renovations were never carried out and Danis Interior Design pocketed a total of $917,500.
Goh also prepared false income documents for most of the buyers. He made CPF contributions to some of the buyers’ CPF accounts from “shell” companies to create a false impression to the banks that the buyers were gainfully employed and had the financial capability to finance the repayment of the loan.
Besides the above offences, Goh also pleaded guilty to 14 other charges of forgery. After investigations against him started, Goh approached Rasif and lawyer David Tan, in March last year for help. Goh claimed Rasif told him to forge documents, and to find someone to sign on the forged documents.
These documents were used to deceive Commercial Affairs Department investigators.
In mitigation, defence lawyer Peter Fernando urged the Court to impose three short consecutive custodial sentences and backdate them to the start of Goh’s remand on May 11.
Goh “was not the mastermind” of the conspiracy, said Mr Fernando. Instead, the two lawyers, Rasif and Tan, played crucial roles in the offences, he said.
Mr Fernando added: “Furthermore, the buyers, sellers and their respective agents all had a hand in the commission of the offences, as rightly stated by the prosecution.” Mr Fernando also argued that Goh’s financial share in the scam was minimal — ranging between $5,000 and $7,000 per transaction.
The prosecution had also not provided evidence to show that the banks had suffered financial losses as a result of the inflated sale prices of the flats.
“Instead, the respective banks which approved the inflated housing loans stood to gain financially in that the inflated prices meant in turn additional interest earned on the housing loan repayments,” argued Mr Fernando.
While Deputy Public Prosecutor Jason Chan accepted that there were no actual losses, he said the impact on banks’ operations would have been “adverse”.
Sentencing has been adjourned to Thursday. Goh is the first to be charged in Court for his role in the scam. The whereabouts of Rasif, who disappeared last year allegedly taking with him about $12 million of his clients’ money, are not known.
On the charges of conspiracy to cheat, Goh faces a maximum seven years’ jail and a fine. On the forgery charges, he faces a maximum two years’ jail and a fine.
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