Former bank employee, insurance agent and private-hire driver jailed for cheating 13 out of S$1.2 million

SINGAPORE: A man who worked as a bank employee, insurance agent and later private-hire driver cheated 13 victims out of S$1.2 million (US$935,000) in investment scams over four years.

Benjamin Chua Sian Yang, a 37-year-old Singaporean, was sentenced on Monday (Jul 28) to jail for six years and three months.

Chua pleaded guilty to three charges of cheating, with another five charges taken into consideration.

The court heard that Chua was an insurance agent with Aviva in 2018. 

Before this, he was a relationship manager at UOB and a personal banker at Citibank, but the dates for these jobs were not provided in court papers.

Since at least 2017, Chua started working as a private-hire driver for additional income.

He got to know some of his victims through his work at UOB or Aviva, when they were his clients.

He also snagged some victims when he ferried them in his private-hire vehicle and talked to them about investment and finance.

He gave an impression that he was a successful forex trader so that they would be interested in investing with him.

Around July 2021, he was fired from his job at Aviva. He opened a demo account with IG Brokers Singapore without a Capital Market Service Licence and used the demo account returns to convince victims to invest with him.

He would send screenshots of alleged projected returns, promising high returns which he knew could not be generated and offering attractive interest rates he knew were impossible to achieve.

To keep up the charade, Chua sometimes gave the victims sums of money that he generated through other means. He also gave gifts to the victims such as iPhones, to entice them to continue investing with him.

The first police report was made against Chua in April 2021. He was investigated but continued to scam others until August 2023, using the money for things like gambling, buying collectables and personal expenses.

Between February 2019 and August 2023, he cheated S$1,233,290 from 13 victims. These include a 67-year-old primary school teacher, a 66-year-old physician and a 55-year-old hawker.

One of the largest sums he cheated was from a 47-year-old freelance stylist, who gave him S$260,000 in total.

She had met him when he ferried her in his vehicle in May 2017, introducing himself as an Aviva financial advisor.

Between 2017 and 2018, she spoke to him over text and in person about financial matters and stocks and later made investments through him.

He later lied to her that he had started his own trading platform in stocks and shares and got her to invest with him multiple times.

One of these included a purported investment in stock in the aviation sector with a minimum S$60,000 principal, to earn S$700 repayment every two weeks, with a free iPhone.

The woman transferred the sum to Chua and received the free iPhone, but did not get any of the promised interest or the principal returned.

Chua was arrested on Aug 22, 2023 and later remanded from Feb 12 this year.

The prosecution sought 76 to 84 months’ jail for Chua, noting the sum involved, the number of victims and the length of offending.

Chua abused the trust of many victims who had been long-time clients of his while he was still working at reputable establishments, said the prosecutor.

Some of the victims provided victim impact statements stating that they suffered great financial losses and were very hurt by his actions, especially where they had a long-standing relationship, she added.