Jail for 5 in housing loan scam; bank incurred $1.8m loss

They convinced sellers of 2 houses to inflate prices and pay cashbacks

- Shaffiq Alkhatib

A group of people worked together on a ruse which led to Maybank being duped into disbursing mortgage loans totalling more than $5.1 million in relation to the sale of two houses.

In a statement on Aug 20, the police said the bank incurred a loss of over $1.79 million on the properties.

The fraud was eventually uncovered when nominee buyers linked to the ruse defaulted on the loans.

The prosecution said the sellers of two properties - one in Saraca Terrace near Yio Chu Kang Road and another in Woodgrove Walk near Woodlands Street 41 had paid $764,000 in cashback.

According to court documents, one of the offenders, Bijabahadur Rai Shree Kantrai, 54, later directed the distribution of the money among his accomplices.

Sufandi Ahmad, 44, Kok Chiew Leong, 51, and Rai were involved in the case relating to the Saraca Terrace house, which involved a cashback payment of $300,000, said the prosecution.

The prosecution also said Sufandi, Rai, Mohamed Haron Hassan, 43, and Juma'at Johari, 44, worked together in the case linked to the Woodgrove Walk house. This involved a cashback payment of $464,000.

The offenders have made no restitution.

On Aug 20, Sufandi, who was not represented by a lawyer, was sentenced to 62 years' jail over two counts of cheating and five counts of using forged documents as original copies.

Rai, who was convicted of seven similar charges, was sentenced to 72 years' jail. He was represented by lawyers Wee Pan Lee and Low Chang Yong.