Apr 27, 2010
Ex-bank manager to be extradited
<!-- by line --> By Khushwant Singh
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Jonathan Seah Thiam Heng, 49, was on Tuesday ordered detained for the authorities here to issue a warrant to surrender him to the US authorities. He did not contest the action. -- ST PHOTO: SHAHRIYA YAHAYA
A FORMER bank executive fresh from serving a prison term in Singapore for stealing confidential data from Citibank is to be extradited to the United States to face 14 charges of mail fraud. Jonathan Seah Thiam Heng, 49, was on Tuesday ordered detained for the authorities here to issue a warrant to surrender him to the US authorities. He did not contest the action. His lawyer Selena Chiong told District Judge Low Wee Ping that she had advised her client to return to America. 'The alleged crimes took place in the US. Whether Jonathan is innocent or guilty at the end of the day is for the courts there to decide. He may well be found innocent,' she said.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Hay Hung Chun gave the court a brief account of Seah's alleged offences. Seah stands accused of a series of mail fraud offences involving a total of US$2 million (S$2.7 million), committed while he was a stockbroker at investment house Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) in Troy, Michigan, from 1991 to 2002. While there, he went by his original name, Lawrence Chia, and is alleged to have convinced 11 clients to invest in a fake tax-free bond scheme supposedly guaranteed by the US federal government. After the victims mailed their cheques to him, Seah is said to have acknowledged their investment deposits with forged documents that he mailed to them. He allegedly pocketed the money.
Read the full report in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.
