Chia Teck Leng

Chia Teck Leng (谢德龙 Xìe Délóng; born 11 October 1959) is a convicted white-collar criminal from Singapore, who was known for his four-year commercial fraud which involved the swindling of $117 million from four foreign major banks to feed his gambling addiction during his time as a financial manager at Asia Pacific Breweries (APB).

Chia Teck Leng, was born in Singapore on 11 October 1959.

During his early years, Chia completed his elementary and secondary school education.

During his pre-university years, Chia studied at Victoria School and with good grades, he studied accountancy in National University of Singapore (NUS), and he thus graduated after completing his degree.

After his graduation from university, Chia Teck Leng began to work at the accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

He went on to take several high-flying positions, including the vice president at UOB, and a financial controller at marine services company Swire Pacific Offshore.

He had two sons born in 1987 and 1989 respectively.

According to his family, friends and colleagues, Chia was an unassuming but committed family man who was filial to his parents and a loving and caring father and husband, as well as a sociable and hard working man who owned a condominium at Serangoon Road.

Unknown to them however, Chia was secretly leading a double life as a high-rolling hustler, and he secretly owned expensive cars, luxury apartments, and had a mistress half his age.

In 1994, while he was still employed at Swire Pacific Offshore, Chia Teck Leng began to gamble.

Chia gradually became heavily addicted to gambling, which led to him suffering from huge debts during 1995 to 1996 and owed several banks about $100,000 in the form of overdrafts and credit card dues.

It was only in 1997 when Chia went to visit Star Cruise ships almost every fortnight for gambling sessions, he began to rake in winnings that were worth fortunes, and he received a credit offer of $75,000.

His winnings grew to about $1 million within less than a year.

However, in August 1998, Chia lost his winnings of $1 million from one gambling spree, and he suffered from new debts as a result of his losses.

His latest job was a finance manager at Asia Pacific Breweries beginning from 20 January 1999, with an annual salary of between $200,000 and $300,000.

During the period, Chia married a teacher.

Chia’s debts were mounted sky-high when he joined Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) as its financial manager on 20 January 1999.

Out of desperation to pay off the debts, Chia began to forge documents merely five days after he took up his new job.

During his four-year forgery crime spree, Chia targeted four foreign banks - one European bank Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), two Japanese banks Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and the Mizuho Corporate Bank and one German bank Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank Aktiengesellschaft (HVB) - and swindled a total of $117 million from them.

Using his fake documents, Chia was able to open bank accounts under APB’s name, and he designated himself as the sole signatory.

Chia had a credit facility for $500,000 from SEB for his use, among the four banks he targeted.

Chia was the sole controller of these accounts because he was able to forge the director board resolutions which gave him the authority to receive the credit and loan facilities, sign the transactions and manage the bank accounts on behalf of APB.

Chia also successfully forged the signatures of the various directors of APB, after he practiced using the specimens of annual reports and internal documents as references to allow the signatures look authentic.

Chia’s modus operandi was to withdraw money from the three banks - SMBC, Mizuho and HVB - through the fake accounts he opened under APB’s name before he transferred them to the SEB bank accounts.

Through the SEB account, Chia was able to stake out funds for gambling by transferring them to his two personal accounts with DBS before it was remitted to casinos in Australia, Britain, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Before his criminal ways were exposed, the banks deeply trusted Chia as a reliable and credit-worthy client, as he was able to make timely deposits to the accounts whenever repayments were due, for which the deposits came from the funds he swindled from any of the other banks.

There was once in November 1999, when Chia withdrew $53 million from an APB account with OCBC, he was able to replace the entire amount by October 2002, thus narrowly escaping detection.

Aside from this, Chia’s gambling feats were increasing so that he was recognised by many casinos around the world.

Chia's crime was known to be Singapore's worst commercial crime committed in the city-state, surpassing that of Teo Cheng Kiat, who embezzled $35 million from Singapore Airlines for 13 years while he was employed there before his capture and sentencing of 24 years' imprisonment in 2000.

From July 2000 onwards, Chia would go to the Crown Casino in Melbourne through private chartered jets provided by the casino.

He was given VIP treatment and was invited to stay in the casino’s most expensive room, which provided a butler service.

At that time, it cost A$25,000 just to spend one night there.

He was also a regular at London Ritz’s Club, where he could engage in higher-stake gambling.

Originally coping with $200 bets during his sessions at Star Cruise casino, Chia went up to place single bets of between A$20,000 and 25,000 in British casinos.

There was one occasion where he placed a single bet of A$400,000 at the Crown Casino.

In April 2002, aboard a casino cruise ship, Chia first met 22-year-old Chinese national Li Jin, who would later become his mistress.

Chia won $1 million from her that same night.

Due to this, Chia began to request Li Jin as his opponent in gambling, considering her as his “good luck charm”, and he was also able to win every time he gambled against her.

Chia Teck Leng was arrested on 2 September 2003 when the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) somehow got wind of his fraudulent activities, and he thus faced a possible life sentence when there were 46 fraud-related criminal charges brought against him.

Although Chia managed to escape the maximum term of life imprisonment after pleading guilty to 14 proceeded charges in a brief trial, he was nevertheless sentenced to a lengthy 42-year term of imprisonment for his crime, which reportedly became the longest term of imprisonment ever meted out by the courts of Singapore for a commercial crime.