Singapore’s $40 Million Scam Lands a 5‑Year Jail Term for Its Jobless Scammer
Who’s Behind the Plot?
Lee Chi Wai (30) is the first of five people to get behind bars for the SkillsFuture fraud that racked up almost $40 million of fake grant money.
He helped stash a whopping $6.7 million in cash and 11 kg of gold (worth about $626,500) at his flat in Sengkang.
And yes—he even used part of that loot ($282,500) to buy 5 kg of gold, then asked his sister for a $30,000 car loan to drive around in style.
The Rest of the Cast
- Lee Lai Leng (40) – sister
- Ng Cheng Kwee (42) – husband, alleged mastermind
- Tan Yoon Nooi (60) – mother of the Lee siblings
- David Lim Wee Hong (40) – friend of Ng
How the $40 Million Got Crunched
Between May and October last year, a rogue syndicate used a web of nine companies—three fake training providers and six alleged applicant firms—to slip 8,386 bogus course‑fee grant applications into the system. Clever, right? They then filed 8,391 corresponding claims.
The story? The supposed training providers supposedly served about 25,000 employees of the six applicant companies. Since the grind told SSG (the SkillsFuture Singapore agency that hands out lifelong‑learning grants), it was all legit, SSG cleared out roughly $39.9 million in subsidies.
Despite the drama, the case against Ng (the mastermind) and the others is still pending—just a bit of wait‑and‑see suspense.
Originally from The Straits Times, this report sheds light on the biggest fraud incident involving a national agency—plain drama and a lot of gold.
