by Elena Chong
A MAN who ran a large Ponzi scheme by promising high returns to
his investors in futures trading was jailed for 80 months on
Wednesday. Dickson Tan Jing Yun took nearly $6 million in
investment funds from 46 people from September 2004 to October
2008.
He paid out only $1.5 million to the investors, including
principal repayments. No other restitution has been made, with $4.5
million lost either through trading or personal use.
Tan, 37, pleaded guilty last week to running a business of fund
management without holding a capital markets services licence
between 2004 and 2008. He also admitted to 10 charges of criminal
breach of trust of $1.2 million, of which $834,332 or 67 per cent
of the total sum were dishonestly converted to his own use.
Senior District Judge See Kee Oon, who took another 22 charges
into consideration, agreed with Deputy Public Prosecutor
Christopher Ong Siu Jin that there were aggravating features in the
case which called for a stiff sentence.
'The premise was to lure additional investors to join the scheme
while seemingly making good on initial promises of guaranteed fixed
returns - essentially a confidence trick repeated many times over
on potential unsuspecting victims,'' said the judge. He said Tan
clearly planned his offences, and had systematically repeated his
pattern of offending, A number of his clients were not
well-educated and a few were above 50 years old.
Tan was an insurance agent in 2004 when he ran the scheme on the
sidelines. He then joined another company as an associate manager
and his last appointment was a branch manager with an insurance
broker December 2007.
