Lui Wai Leong, a 45-year-old Singaporean, was convicted for attempting to cheat the Trustees of the Cultural Matching Fund (“CMF”) into disbursing grants to the Chinese Cultural Association (“CCA”), a registered arts and heritage charity. The CMF, a fund set up by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, provides dollar-for-dollar matching grants for private cash donations received by registered charities in the arts and heritage sector.
Between May and September 2014, Lui Wai Leong, who was the President of CCA, had asked a staff in his company to submit two CMF applications that falsely declared that the CCA had received donations amounting to $1,389,106. The CCA’s donation amount had been inflated through “round-tripping” as the source of the donations were traced back to the CCA. The two applications were inflated by S$70,000 and S$261,852 respectively. The CMF eventually did not disburse any grants to the CCA.
For his offence of attempted cheating under Section 420 read with Section 511 of the Penal Code, Lui Wai Leong was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment on 20 February 2020. A similar charge was taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.
The court proceedings against Lui’s co-accused is ongoing.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
20 February 2020 @ 1:40 PM