14 hours ago
More jail time for parquet firm founder over 2 more cheating charges involving nearly $500k in total
Jason Sim Chon Ang admitted on June 23 that he had deceived two banks into delivering nearly $500,000 in total, and was sentenced to six months' jail. PHOTO: ST FILE
More jail time for parquet firm founder over 2 more cheating charges involving nearly $500k in total
SINGAPORE - The founder of a parquet company, who is currently serving a jail sentence over multiple counts of cheating, will be spending more time behind bars after he pleaded guilty to two more cheating charges.
On June 23, Jason Sim Chon Ang, 59, who is no longer a director at Jason Parquet Specialist Singapore (JPS), admitted that he had deceived two banks into delivering nearly $500,000 in total, and was sentenced to six months' jail.
The Singaporean was earlier sentenced to three years' jail in July 2023 for duping three banks into delivering more than $2 million in loans.
In February 2025, the High Court ordered him to spend eight more months behind bars following the prosecution's appeal against this sentence.
He is currently serving his sentence of three years and eight months' jail.
He will begin serving his latest sentence after completing this earlier one, the court heard on June 23.
This means, he will spend a total of four years and two months behind bars.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jordon Li said that for the current case, Sim had cheated two banks into disbursing loans where no goods had been sold and delivered.
He added that JPS was in the business of supplying and installing timber flooring.
The firm was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jason Holdings which was listed on the Singapore Exchange Catalist board from September 2012.
At the time of the offences, Sim was the executive chairman and chief executive of Jason Holdings.
Court documents stated that his two cheating charges were linked to two other Singaporean men from different companies that supplied sawn timber to JPS.
They are: Chua Mang Sin, 57, then a director at Greenland Resources, and Daniel Chew Bong Tiong, 61, who was then a procurement officer at Primex Lumber. The cases involving Chua and Chew are pending.
DPP Li said that as part of the financing process, JPS had to submit application forms supported by invoices and delivery orders issued by suppliers to show that the goods had been sold and delivered.
Upon approval, the banks would pay the suppliers. JPS would then be required to repay these loans within 120 to 180 days from the invoice date.
The banks would only pay to certain approved suppliers, said the DPP. This took place after the banks performed checks and found them to be acceptable.
However, court documents stated that JPS had a Filipino supplier called Marasigan Mitze Rosie Hondrada, who was not an approved supplier.
As a result, JPS was unable to use its financing facilities with the banks to pay this supplier.
DPP Li said that on or before April 2, 2014, Sim approached Chew to help remit funds to Hondrada.
The prosecutor added: 'The accused knew that Hondrada was not an approved supplier and so could not be paid under JPS' financing facilities with the banks.
'To circumvent this, the accused instructed his staff to get (Chew) to assist by allowing JPS to submit a false invoice and delivery order with the letterhead of Primex.'
On April 2, 2014, JPS' accounts department submitted an application for import financing to the sum of nearly US$143,000 (more than S$181,000 according to court documents) to a bank with an invoice and delivery order purportedly issued by Primex.
The documents stated that European oak wood had been sold and delivered to JPS.
The bank approved the application and disbursed the loan sum to Primex.
The DPP said that upon receiving the loan sum, Primex remitted more than US$113,000 to a bank account in the Philippines belonging to Hondrada, incurring a bank charge of over US$200.
Separately, Sim also asked Greenland to submit an invoice and delivery order for about $300,000 to JPS on or around March 16, 2015, to assist with an import financing application.
DPP Li told the court: 'Chua prepared an invoice and delivery order on Greenland's letterhead... stating that 95,000 pieces of teak sawn timber worth (more than $318,000) had been sold to JPS on March 16, 2015.
'There was in fact no such sale of timber at the material time and both the accused and Chua knew this. They also knew that this invoice and delivery order would be used by JPS to apply for bank financing.'
JPS later submitted an application to a second bank with a similar invoice and delivery order from Greenland for an import financing loan of over $318,000.
The bank approved the loan and disbursed the amount to Greenland on or around March 17, 2015 .
The prosecutor said that Greenland transferred $250,000 to JPS the following month.
He added: 'The accused had asked Chua to remit the monies to JPS to help JPS with its cash flow issues and left it to Chua to make the necessary arrangements with JPS staff on how the monies would be remitted to JPS.
'Greenland retained $47,738 which was set off against an outstanding debt JPS owed to Greenland for a prior supply of goods to JPS.'
For each count of cheating, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times' court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts.
Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
