Singaporean Wrestler Sentenced to Jail After Cheating OCBC & Maybank S’pore

By
Zhi Hao
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You may have heard of Andruew Tang before.

Known as The Statement in the local wrestling circle, the co-founder of Singapore Pro Wrestling is also the 4 times champion of SPW South East Asia.

Not a small feat by any means.

In addition, he also dabbles in skits across social media platforms, having featured in channels such as TropicMonstersTV.

So in a sense, one can genuinely say that he’s multi-talented.

Singaporean Wrestler Sentenced to Jail After Cheating OCBC & Maybank S’pore

But it seems that Tang may be even more multi-talented than we initially thought.

On 8 September 2021, Tang was sentenced to two weeks of imprisonment, after assisting a Russian man in a scheme to deceive two banks.

Meanwhile, his Russian counterpart was sentenced to four weeks behind bars.

It should be noted that Tang was one of four Singaporeans indicted in relation to Russian Vadim Koryagin’s scheme.

Apparently, Tang had deceived the two banks, OCBC Bank and Maybank Singapore, by deliberately hiding the “ultimate beneficial ownership” of two companies.

He had also covered up a bank account that was connected to him.

How Did The Ruse Work?

For context, it should be noted that Vadim was a director in MEA Business Solutions.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been a penalising charge had he fulfilled the necessary requirements.

Under regulations, it’s necessary to have at least one director in the firm, who’s ordinarily a Singapore resident.

And while the allocation of resident nominee directors, as Vadim did with the affiliated Singaporeans, is allowed, his ultimate sin lies in one single aspect:

Informing the banks that Tang was the one in charge of the companies, when they actually had owners from other countries.

The CPIB said: “Vadim would register each company with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) in the name of the local resident director and list them as the sole shareholder of the company in Acra’s records.

“Vadim would also instruct the local resident director to open a corporate bank account for the company in certain instances.”

Thereafter, Tang declared himself as the ultimate beneficial owner of two firms, the Babo Group and Evoque Capital Corp, as well as a bank account for a company named Sensetec. As we all know, this wasn’t actually the case.

“Vadim had also provided (Tang) with the necessary information to answer the questions posed by bank representatives who were trying to establish the true beneficial ownership of these companies (and) bank accounts,” said the CPIB.

The offences were ultimately committed through false declarations and supporting Acra documents.

It should be noted, however, that there was no evidence of illegal funds.

Sentencing

Tang and Vadim were actually charged in 2019, but were only convicted this year on three counts of cheating each.

They’ll be appealing against their charges and sentences.

Meanwhile, two Singaporean women involved in the scheme, Phee Sim Gek, 43, and Seet Mei Siah, 64, were each jailed for five days in 2020.

The case of a fourth Singaporean, Joel Sam Thomas, 37, is still ongoing.

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Featured Image: footageclips; TanakDusun/shutterstock.com 

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Zhi Hao
Email: [email protected]