Student spared reformative training for $500,000 shopping voucher scam

[Windsorlou]

Student spared reformative training for $500,000 shopping voucher scam

Published on Sep 20, 2013

Hakim Leong, a 20-year-old student who tried to cheat a supermarket chain out of $500,000 in shopping vouchers, was on Friday, Sept 20, 2013, spared reformative training, after a judge decided to let him serve out the remainder of his sentence. -- ST FILE PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW

By Ian Poh

A 21-year-old student who was already serving a jail term for cheating a supermarket chain of $500,000 in shopping vouchers has been spared reformative training.

This was after Justice Choo Han Teck on Friday threw out an appeal by the prosecution for Hakim Leong to undergo the training and decided to let him serve out the remainder of his 81/2-month term.

Reformative training is a regime in which offenders below the age of 21 are detained at a reformative training centre for between 1½ and three years, as they undergo structured rehabilitation programmes.

If Justice Choo had agreed to the appeal, Leong would effectively have to start his sentence all over again as the three months he had already spent behind bars for pulling off the scam in 2011 would not count.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

 

[hokkien]

He is lucky,student pass special?

 

[chinasuckz]

Updated: 10/11/2013 15:40 | By Channel NewsAsia

Accomplice of voucher cheat jailed 6 months 2 weeks

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SINGAPORE: The accomplice of the student who bought S$500,000 worth of NTUC vouchers with a dishonoured cheque has been sentenced to six months and two weeks' jail.

24-year-old Tan Tuan Lue admitted to cheating NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd in November 2011 of S$500,000 worth of vouchers.

He committed the offences in November 2011 with 20-year-old Hakim Leong.

Leong was sentenced to eight months and two weeks' jail in June this year.

Leong, who was a student at the time of the offence, opened a "company account" with S$500 and was issued a cheque book.

Then Leong pretended to set up a company called "Miraclevents" and asked Modetti Office Services in early November 2011 to help incorporate his firm.

In doing so, he cheated Modetti into providing office services valued at S$697.

Then in mid-November (2011), Leong approached NTUC FairPrice to buy its vouchers.

Together with Tan, he issued NTUC FairPrice a cheque, knowing they could not pay the S$500,000.

The pair went on to buy liquor and cigarettes, among other things, and resold some items for cash.

Leong also went online to exchange S$1,000 NTUC vouchers with CapitaMall vouchers of the same value.

In pleading for leniency, Tan's defence lawyer Gregory Ong said his client's culpability is lesser than that of Leong.

He indicated that Leong was the mastermind, noting that Leong had written and signed the cheques.

Tan, Mr Ong said, was not involved in this aspect.

For the cheating-related offences, Tan could have been jailed between three and 10 years and fined.

For converting the NTUC vouchers into CapitaMall vouchers, he could have been jailed a maximum of seven years and fined S$500,000. - CNA/xq