Cheng Choong Hung, formerly of Nanyang Technological University’s innovation arm, allegedly cheated organisations including NTU of $225,000.
Cheng Choong Hung, a former director of Nanyang Technological University (NTU)’s commercialisation arm NTUitive, has been charged with defrauding a total of $225,000 from organisations including the university, the Strait Times reported yesterday.
Cheng, who worked for NTUitive from 2013 until 2016, will face a total of 22 charges of cheating and 96 counts of doing business with illicit wealth, as well as two charges of providing NTUitive with false pricing quotes.
One of Cheng’s alleged accomplices, Louise Lai Pei Hsien, a former director of IT services provider I-KnowHow, has been charged with 15 counts of cheating involving $191,000.
Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said it had seized approximately $281,000 from Cheng, $200,000 of which was allegedly held in a bank account under a different name.
Cheng and Lai are accused of submitting fraudulent I-KnowHow invoices to NTU, NTUitive and the university’s TechBiz Xccelerator, resulting in $117,000 changing hands between August 2014 and February 2015.
The pair are suspected under a separate lot of charges of having duped Lu Jiawen, then an employee of TechBiz, by using fake invoices to secure $44,000 in 2015.
Lai later allegedly concocted another scheme with her husband Wong Chee Leong, but without Cheng, to cheat $30,000 from NTU in 2016.
Meanwhile, Cheng will defend accusations stating he worked with Fung Kwok Pan, director of design and technology studio Voidworks, to commit cheating offences involving $64,000 in 2015 and 2016. He is also accused of conspiring with a former technical manager at NTU to draw up false quotations for work bought from Voidworks.