Following a joint investigation conducted by the Commercial Affairs Department and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Chew Swee Sun Johnny was convicted today and sentenced to a total of 8 weeks’ imprisonment for engaging in a conspiracy with Woo Jiawei Jayern to employ a scheme to defraud Contracts-for-Differences (“CFD”) provider, IG Asia Pte Ltd (“IG Asia”). The co-conspirator Woo was convicted and sentenced to a total of 5 weeks’ imprisonment earlier on 27 May 2019.
Between 2 April and 18 December 2012, Chew and Woo executed a total of 26 CFD trades offered by IG Asia, where the contracts were based on shares listed on the Singapore Exchange Limited. Knowing that IG Asia priced the CFDs based on the price of the underlying shares, Chew and Woo came up with a scheme where they will enter orders in the underlying shares. They had no intention for these orders to be filled. Instead, the purpose of these orders was to momentarily depress the CFD purchase prices and/or inflate the CFD sale prices, thereby allowing them to benefit from their CFD trades. Chew and Woo would thereafter cancel their orders in the underlying shares before the orders were filled. This act of placing and cancelling orders without an intention for these orders to be filled is also commonly referred to as ‘spoofing’.
Chew and Woo carried out their scheme over a period of 9 months and reaped profits totalling S$29,661 at the expense of IG Asia. The CFD trades and the underlying spoofed orders were entered in quick succession to minimise the risk of their spoofed orders being filled. In one such instance, they entered the spoofed order, completed the CFD trade and cancelled the spoofed order in less than 3 minutes. A total of S$2,600 was made from that CFD trade.
Chew pleaded guilty to 8 charges under Section 201(a) of the Securities and Futures Act (“SFA”) for employing a scheme to defraud and 1 charge under Section 201(b) of the SFA for unauthorised trading, with the remaining 19 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing. Woo pleaded guilty to 4 charges for Section 201(a) of the SFA for employing a scheme to defraud and 1 charge under Section 201(b) of the SFA for unauthorised trading, with the remaining 8 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
31 May 2019 @ 4:40 PM