An Indian national and corporate director has been summoned to a Singapore district court after allegedly using the name of a fugitive lawyer to defraud two insurers into paying out nearly SG$77,000 in claims.
The man, Saha Ranjit Chandra, allegedly deceived Great Eastern Life Assurance in 2020 and China Taiping Insurance Singapore in 2021 by posing as lawyer Charles Yeo Yao Hui, a director of Whitefield Law Corp. Chandra himself is a director for other firms, including Ranjit Investment Holdings and RS Global Immigration Consultancy.
However, it was revealed that Yeo had been on the run since 2022 for offences including harassment and wounding the religious feelings of Christians. Yeo was served a warrant of arrest in August of the same year after he absconded with pending criminal charges, according to a report from The Straits Times. Yeo is no longer with Whitefield Law, as revealed by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra).
Chandra was handed five charges, including two counts of cheating. Between July 29 and November 30, 2022, Great Eastern allegedly paid out a worker’s settlement sum of SG$35,000 to Whitefield Law under Chandra’s direction while using Yeo’s name. Likewise, in early 2021, Chandra allegedly defrauded China Taiping Insurance Singapore for a settlement sum of nearly SG$42,000.
The Indian national was also charged with giving false information to a public servant, the Registrar of Regulated Dealers of the Ministry of Law, in 2022. Chandra allegedly failed to declare that he was under investigation in Singapore while applying for a precious stones and precious metals dealer license on behalf of another company.
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