A 37 year old former AIA insurance agent, Sng Kang Xiang, was sentenced to a year imprisonment for cheating his primary school friend of $24,900 with a fake insurance policy and forged AIA letter.
He pleaded guilty to one count of cheating and forgery, and still has two other charges taken into consideration by the court in his sentencing.
Here is the story background
Sng has been working in AIA Singapore for about 11 years before committing the crime in March 2018.
He knew the victim since Primary school, and they always had a trusting relationship as the victim has bought other policies from him before.
Sng introduced the policy to his friend with the context that she will be buying it from an existing policy holder and that it only costs her $24,900
She will only need to hold the policy for a year and she will be able to get her capital back and another USD$4000.
She proceeded to transfer him the $24,900 but did not receive any policy documents like how she would usually receive from Sng after purchasing a policy.
Investigations then revealed that the money had been transferred to Sng’s account instead of AIA as per protocol, and that Sng had used the money to pay for his own flat renovations and credit card bills.
The victim subsequently grew suspicious and began chasing Sng for payment so he forged an AIA letterhead to state that the policy has indeed been transferred to her.
She wanted to go down to AIA to check but Sng got wind of it and dissuaded her.
She eventually managed to go down to AIA and found out that there was no such policy. AIA then made a police report in August 2018 and refunded her.
Sng made full repayment back to AIA subsequently.
The prosecutor asked for a year’s jail for Sng stating that this was an insurance scam and that there was public interest in prevention of such scams from happening.
His lawyer asked for a shorter sentence of eight months instead arguing that Sng has made full repayment and that this was his first offence.
The judge decide to agree with the prosecutor on the fact that there was public interest in the prevention of such scams but allowed Sng to defer the start of his sentence to settle his matters as he has just sold off his house.
Image source: google maps and mas.gov.sg