S’pore Lawyers & Property Agents Allegedly Involved In S$11.4Million Housing Loan Cashback Scam

Back in 2014 and 2015, there were four cases of housing loan cashback scams. Doesn’t sound like too big of a deal right?

Well, what if I told you that the scam involved some S$11.4 million? Now that’s a lot of money.

But wait, there are more shocking details.

What if I told you that the scam involved a grand total of 10 people, some of which are lawyers and property agents?

S’pore Lawyers & Property Agents Allegedly Involved In S$11.4Million Housing Loan Cashback Scam

Yeap, a grand total of 10 people are being charged by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) for their alleged involvement in a series of housing loan cashback scams.

These scams happened back in 2014 and 2015.

In total, S$11.398 million was involved across the four cases.

10 people, which included a lawyer, property sellers, nominee buyers and property agents teamed up and worked together to make the scam work.

Here’s exactly how it went down:

The ones behind the scam acted as the buyer.

They then made an arrangement with the seller and the seller’s property agent to buy the property at a previously agreed price.

That said, when the price they used to apply for bank loans were artificially inflated.

When the sale was completed, the seller returned the buyers the extra moolah and would only take the previously agreed price.

The ones behind the scam would also recruit nominee buyers and submit forge income documents to banks so that they could get the loans.

The scam was later discovered when the nominee buyers defaulted on the loans.

Wait.. Did they not see that coming?

The Damage & The Punishment

The forged income documents successfully tricked the banks into disbursing S$8.518 million worth of loans for three of the four mortgage applications.

In total, the bank lost a whopping S$2.9 million when the three properties were later sold by the bank at a loss.

On 3 December 2019, the three who facilitated the scam will be charged with cheating and forgery.

One of the facilitators will face a whopping seven other charges related to criminal breach of trust under Section 408 of the Penal Code and cheating.

The two nominee buyers will face one count of cheating which might include jail time of up to 10 years and a fine.

The two property sellers will face one count of fraudulently executing a deed of transfer and will face jail time of up to three years, a fine or both.