A former Great Eastern financial adviser who touted investment schemes promising returns of more than 40% was sentenced to 11 years and four months in jail on Friday (13 November). After his scheme collapsed, he cheated his relatives and friends, as well as those of his clients, of nearly $8.7 million within a year, using the money to compensate clients for their losses and to gamble in an attempt to recoup his losses.
The accused, Tan Kai Min (26, name transliterated), pleaded guilty to 22 charges, including individual and amalgamated charges of cheating, forgery, transferring criminal proceeds and providing false information to a public servant. The judge took another 68 charges into consideration in sentencing.
Tan was a financial adviser at Great Eastern Financial Advisers (GEFA) at the time of the offences. In 2020, when he was 20, he devised a scheme to attract investors and earn commissions, claiming he could generate returns of more than 40% by investing in US stocks, options trading, artificial intelligence (AI) forex trading bots and cryptocurrencies.
Initially, Tan put all the investment funds he received into the scheme. But in early 2023, he realised it had failed and he could no longer deliver the promised returns. To make up for investors’ losses, he devised more attractive investment schemes to obtain money through deception and plug the shortfall.
He first targeted relatives and friends, including secondary school classmates and friends he had met during national service. He later also targeted the parents and romantic partners of his friends and clients.
To lure victims, he offered high returns and complex investment schemes that made them believe they could profit. He maintained an image of wealth, wearing designer labels and driving luxury cars. He also recruited people to find victims for him.
Within a year, he cheated 82 people of $8,694,169, causing actual losses of $5,234,294. He did not invest any of the money, instead using it to pay the returns he had promised investors when the scheme collapsed and to cover personal expenses. He used the remaining money to place bets with Singapore Pools and gamble at Resorts World Sentosa more than 170 times in an attempt to recoup his losses, but lost almost all of it.
By late 2023, a growing number of victims were demanding their money back. To fend them off, Tan fabricated various excuses, claiming he was under investigation by the Commercial Affairs Department, that the authorities had frozen his bank accounts, that an assistant had absconded with the money and that he too was a scam victim. To lend credibility to his claims, he lodged a false police report saying his bank accounts had been frozen, and forged police letters and documents. Several victims eventually made police reports nonetheless. After he was asked to attend an interview at a police station, he turned himself in with records showing the flow of funds.
In mitigation, Tan’s lawyer said he had been young and foolish, mistakenly believing gambling could solve his problems, and asked for a jail term of nine and a half years. The prosecution countered that Tan had planned his actions carefully, sustaining a long-running scam and manipulating others into cheating on his behalf. He was not merely a misguided young man, it argued, urging the judge to impose a jail term of 11 years and four months.
