[SINGAPORE] While employed at Credit Suisse, a woman forged at least 112 letters to perform unauthorised transactions on her clients’ accounts, which eventually cost the bank S$14.35 million in compensation.
Soh Yuan-Yi, 50, was sentenced to 13 years’ jail on Thursday (Jan 8), after she pled guilty to 30 charges, including forgery and transferring the benefits from criminal conduct.
Another 123 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Court documents stated that Soh became assistant vice-president of the Swiss bank in 2005, and was promoted to vice-president in 2011, working there until August 2013.
Her duties included recommending investment products to clients, carrying out instructions from her clients in relation to their bank accounts and establishing relationships with new or prospective clients.
Soh had access to the account information, bank statements and balances of her clients, who invested between S$2 million and S$20 million through Credit Suisse.
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Between 2006 and 2013, Credit Suisse carried out transactions on its clients’ accounts by following instructions written on the bank’s instruction letters.
Instruction letters had to be signed by the client for the bank to execute the instructions, and could be submitted through Credit Suisse’s relationship managers or their assistants.
Over seven years, Soh used at least 112 forged instruction letters to perform unauthorised transactions on 22 Credit Suisse accounts belonging to 15 of her clients.
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These were largely unauthorised withdrawals made to non-Credit Suisse accounts under her control or inter-client transfers to hide the unauthorised withdrawals and losses in her clients’ accounts.
Soh did this by forging her clients’ signatures, and writing false reasons for the transactions so that the bank’s back office would process them.
She made the unauthorised withdrawals from her clients’ accounts and transferred the amounts to joint bank accounts she held with her mother and husband.
In 2007, she and her husband bought a landed property in Yio Chu Kang for S$1.37 million. To make the down payment, Soh forged two instruction letters to issue two cheques worth S$110,000 to a joint account with her husband.
Of this sum, more than S$104,000 was used to buy the house.
In 2009, Soh and her husband wanted to sell the house tobuy another piece of real estate.
Unable to find a buyer, she transferred ownership of the property to one of her clients without his knowledge by forging his signature on a purchase agreement stating that he had bought the house for S$1.49 million.
After the transfer, Soh lied to the client and told him the property was a “free gift” to him.
She then forged instruction letters for over S$1.5 million from his account to be transferred to her or the law firm that handled the transaction.
The client later sold the property and incurred a loss of more than S$86,800.
Discovery of offences
In June 2013, one of her clients complained to the bank that multiple unauthorised transactions had been made on his account.
Following internal investigations, Soh was suspended on Jun 20, 2013. The bank also lodged a police report.
Some S$9.16 million had been transferred out of her clients’ accounts as a result of Soh’s actions.
The bank paid the clients affected S$14.35 million to compensate for their losses.
Soh has since made repayment of nearly S$3.3 million to the bank.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Norman Yew told the court that she had taken more than S$5.87 million from her clients.
Considering her restitution, Soh had a net benefit of more than S$2 million.
DPP Yew sought a jail term of 15 years and two months’ jail to 16 years’ jail for Soh.
He said that the offences were premeditated and committed over a long period of time, and had adversely affected the integrity and reputation of Singapore’s financial system.
“Not only were a bank and its clients the victims in this case, the accused committed the offences in her capacity as a senior member of the banking community against the bank she was working for and the clients whose interests she was to safeguard. Such offences must be treated harshly,” he said.
Soh will begin serving her sentence on Jan 29. THE STRAITS TIMES
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