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Former AIA agent banned from practice for 8 years for cheating widow

PHOTO: Bobby Yip/Yahoo News Singapore
PHOTO: Bobby Yip/Yahoo News Singapore

A former insurance agent has been been banned from practice for eight years by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which issued two prohibition orders against him.

In a statement on Wednesday (24 January), MAS said that Tan Peng Khoon is prohibited 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.

He is also forbidden from carrying on business and taking part in the management of any insurance intermediary.

While a representative of AIA Singapore Private Ltd (AIA), Tan deceived a customer into signing documents to surrender a personal life policy for a cash value of $2,018 and to take a policy loan of $6,500. The customer was an elderly, widowed factory worker who did not understand English.

Using these documents, he deceived AIA into giving him two cheques, issued in his customer’s name for the total sum of $8,518.

Tan then arranged for the customer to make him a joint holder of her bank account by claiming 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 the proceeds in cash.

On 27 April 2015, Tan was convicted of charges ranging from forgery to criminal breach of trust. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment on 27 November 2015.

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