MAS slaps 8-year ban on former AIA agent for cheating widowed factory worker

THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Wednesday said it has issued prohibition orders against former AIA representative Tan Peng Khoon for cheating his client.

Tan will be prohibited for a period of eight years from carrying on business and taking part in the management of any insurance intermediary under the Insurance Act.

He will also be barred from providing any financial advisory service, and taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory firm under the Financial Advisers Act.

Tan - who was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment in November, 2015 - was working for AIA when he hatched a plan to deceive then 61-year-old widow Lim Choon Hoong. The illiterate Mandarin-speaking factory worker unwittingly signed four English-language documents in 2011 surrendering her life insurance policy for S$2,018 and letting her obtain a S$6,500 loan on another life insurance policy.

Tan then cheated AIA into giving him two cheques, issued in his customer's name for the total sum of S$8,518. He then arranged for the customer to make him a joint holder of her bank account by falsely representing that he intended to deposit monies from fees due to him into the account to repay a loan owed to the customer. This allowed him to deposit AIA's cheques into the joint account, and withdraw that amount in cash.