Man helps loan sharks borrow $800,000 from DBS, financial institutions

While facing financial difficulties, a man decided to help loan sharks obtain loans from financial institutions, in exchange for money.

Through his complicity, the unlicensed moneylenders received $800,000 from two financial institutions, including DBS Bank.

The financial institutions only realised something was wrong when the bulk of the loans went unpaid.

On July 30, Mitchell Goh Mia Chiu, 54, was sentenced to 32 months' jail after he pleaded guilty to two cheating charges, transferring the benefits of criminal conduct and an offence under the Moneylenders Act.

Another charge under the same Act was taken into consideration for his sentencing.

The court heard that in April 2023, Goh took a $500 loan from unlicensed moneylenders he saw on social media as he was in financial difficulty.

To get more money, he agreed to give his particulars to the loan sharks to register a company, Rhino Technology, which would be used to obtain loans from financial institutions.

As part of this arrangement, Goh - as the firm's registered director - would receive 2 per cent of the loan amounts.

In May that year, the unlicensed moneylenders made a loan application of $300,000 to payment institution Xfers.

The application was accompanied with forged supporting documents suggesting that Rhino Technology had rented an entire office for its company operations.

Goh was instructed by the illegal moneylenders to book a conference room in the office, where he met the Xfers representatives to confirm the loan agreement.

The sum was disbursed into Rhino Technology's bank account in May, but it defaulted on the loan repayment the next month.

Suspicious, Xfers conducted further checks and discovered that the supporting documents had been forged.

The second loan application of $500,000 was made to DBS bank in June 2023, similarly accompanied with forged bank statements.

Goh also met a DBS relationship manager at the office conference room that he booked beforehand, and was paid $2,000 for doing so.

After getting the loan, Rhino Technology only paid monthly instalments of $10,199 to DBS from July to November 2023. The outstanding amount of $465,000 was left unpaid.

Both DBS and Xfers did not recover any of their lost sums.

Goh also helped the loan sharks with other tasks, such as withdrawing $84,999 in cash from an OCBC bank outlet in Toa Payoh and passing it to a runner. He got $1,500 as a reward.

In May 2024, another unknown unlicensed moneylender asked Goh to splash coffee at a borrower's front door and paste a debtor's note there, in exchange for $100.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ryan Lim called for Goh to be sentenced to between 35 and 36 months' jail, and highlighted the sophistication of the cheating offences.

The prosecutor said using false documents to induce institutions to provide credit and financing undermines the confidence of the financial industry in such instruments.

However, DPP Lim acknowledged that Goh was not the mastermind and was operating at a lower level in the scheme.