All language subtitles for Serial.Swindlers.S01E02.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

- This was really a
sensational case at a time.

Because it was banks were
being swindled of money.

- It was a very large fraud.

About 117 million dollars.

- He was always in deep fraud.

Highly intelligent man, he
never, lost his composure.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Chia Teck
Leng, is Singapore's

biggest ever
commercial fraudster.

Stealing a massive 117
million Singapore dollars

from four international banks.

He used the money to fund
his love of gambling.

At one time, he was the second
biggest gambler in the world.

Chia was courted by some of
the biggest casino groups

and won and lost
millions of dollars

at their tables
across the world.

- The first time
I knew Mr Chia was

when I was working
for a casino ship

called Renaissance Cruises,
that ran out of Singapore.

- [Narrator] Francis
Higgins used to be

VP of business development
at a major casino bar.

- We pulled up at another
vessel belonging to

a casino ship company
and all of a sudden

the ships opened up, the
captains waiting there

at the side of the ship,
and this little man

walked down dressed in a
suit, carrying a briefcase,

he was the sole person to walk
off onto this casino ship.

We were all looking and I
just thought, who's that?

It's gotta be
somebody, a big player.

- [Narrator] Chia became
not only one of Francis's

key customers but
also a close friend.

It was on one of the
cruise ships that Chia

met beautiful
croupier, Lee Ching.

Just 18, she was half his age.

- Lee Ching was a dealer on
one of the star cruise ships.

He found her lucky,
attractive of course,

and he was always
playing at her table.

He found her his lucky charm.

- [Narrator] Dr Thomas Lee is
a counselor and psychiatrist

at the Resilience Mind Clinic.

- Gamblers have this,
superstitious type of beliefs.

It's an illusion of
power and control.

So for Mr Chia he believed
that the particular person

this girlfriend is the
lucky charm for him.

So that whenever he goes,
or whenever he gambles,

he had to bring this
girl along with him.

To give him this forced
sense of meaning.

It's toilet thinking.

- Eventually he basically
told her to leave the job

and that he would
take care of her.

He took her everywhere with him.

She would always be with him.

- [Narrator] Chia traveled
all over the world to gamble,

using so called business
trips to frequent casinos.

- She didn't travel
with him to gamble.

He gave her lots of gifts,
and he gave her money as well.

And so she was like the constant
companion slash girlfriend.

- [Narrator] Edmund Pereira has
been Chia Teck Leng's lawyer

for the last 10
years, and heard all

about his client's
gambling trips.

- The casinos that
he traveled most

would be those in Australia.

The went to Crown Casino,
that's the biggest playground

there for Mr Chia,
and of course they

were down in London
to Aspinalls, Ritz.

- [Narrator] The
biggest casinos in

the world courted
Chia's business.

- They treated him very well.

He was on the
Crown's private jet

from Singapore to
Calvin over the weekend.

And they gave him the
suit, the swimming pool

and the theater in
it, of course he had

his own private room to play.

So basically what can I say?

They treated him well.

- He was a very methodical guy.

He would come straight
onboard the plane,

dressed straight in his pajamas,

and he would go
straight to sleep.

And soon as we landed
in Sydney it was

straight to the tables,
and doing business.

The Crown Casino ended up
offering him $30,000 a box,

Sydney couldn't
compete with that.

The casino Jupiter's,
it offered him $30,000.

They even made a $30,000
chip for him to play with.

Mr Chia chips, they called them.

He paid on time, you know,
and that's why his credit kept

getting increased, more
and more, and that's when

the casinos started
competing against each other.

- [Narrator] But the
higher the stakes,

the greater the demands
that young Lee Ching made.

- He was a loving guy to her.

Chia would ask the casino
to pick out the latest

Louis Vuitton bags that
weren't even released.

They would fly
them in from Paris

and give them to her, they
would give her watches.

She was a very young girl,
she would chuck tantrums

in front of him if she
couldn't get her own way.

- [Narrator] No demand was
too great for his lucky charm.

- I can remember
one incident where

she wanted a hair dresser
on a Sunday in London

and the casino was calling
everybody asking them

to come down, they
couldn't find anybody,

and she was basically in
the casino stamping her feet

going I'm not going out, I want

the hair dresser I
want I want I want.

- [Narrator] At Chia's
peak he was the world's

second biggest gambler, and
the risks often paid off.

- His biggest win was in London,
we were at the Crockford's

Casino, I told him I had to
go and top off my SIM card,

I went down, I would've
been gone only 40 minutes.

By the time I came back all
the casino management are out

on the footpath in
front of the casino.

I walked inside and Chia
was just sitting there

with this big smile on his face.

I looked at him and
I said what happened?

And he says to me, I
just broke the record.

And I said what's that?

And he says I just won
9.2 million pounds.

- [Narrator] Solicitor
Edmund Pereira,

first met his client in 2003.

And got to know the
Chia family very well.

- He is not from
a wealthy family.

It's just and average
family, he worked hard.

His parents are not what you
would classify as wealthy.

Just average citizens.

- [Narrator] His client had a
modest Singapore upbringing.

And worked hard as a young
man to better himself.

- He did accounting.

He has a degree in accounting,

from the University
of Singapore.

- [Narrator] Chia's
career progressed quickly.

He joined accounting
firm Arthur Anderson.

And then moved to
several top positions,

including one at
United Overseas Bank.

In the early 90's, he was
made Financial Controller

at Squire Pacific Offshore
Services in Hong Kong.

There was nothing about this
successful young accountant

that hinted he would
go on to become

Singapore's biggest
ever fraudster.

Long before Lee Ching
came on the scene,

Chia had married
a school teacher.

They had two sons,
and by the late 90's,

they'd moved to a condo
at St Francis Lodge,

in pop market part of Singapore.

They seemed like any
other middle class family.

- The vast majority
of these cases

the individual has never
started out with the intention

to defraud and the might have
led a perfectly blameless

career for the
last 30, 40 years.

And so any amount of
background due diligence

is not going to really
show up anything at all.

- [Narrator] In
fact Chia had been a

secret gambler since
his early 30's.

He vividly remembers his
first experience at a casino.

- It started off
innocuously enough.

I was simply passing
time on board the

cruise ship one lazy afternoon.

By pure chance I had walked
into it's only casino.

To be accosted by the
very colorful lights,

attractive croupiers, and the
magical promise of easy money.

Nevertheless, the
experience was exhilarating.

- Over the years there
are some individuals

who, definitely the
more competitive ones,

those are more
energetic, those who

like a thrill, adrenaline rush,

they may get sucked into
this pattern of gambling to

achieve this level
of excitement.

- [Narrator] Francis says the
Singaporean kept a low profile

in the early days, not like
most of his flashier clients.

- He had no air about him,
he was a very humble person.

He always wore a calculator,
Casio calculator, you know

something like you'd see a
normal accountant wearing.

One trip we were coming back
from a port called Pengalee,

we were both walking
to this red Porsche,

and I thought oh that
must be Mr Chia's car,

because he dropped like
500,000 Singapore dollars

that night and you
know, I thought

that must be his
car, and to my shock

he walked and jumped into
this little Mazda, 323, that

was beaten up and it wasn't
a very impressive car at all.

- [Narrator] In January
1999, Chia was offered

at a top job at Asia
Pacific Breweries.

The beverage firm, best known
for producing Tiger Beer,

wanted him as their
new finance manager.

He seemed like the
ideal candidate,

and they would pay
him $300,000 a year.

But when Chia joined APB, he
was harboring a dark secret.

He owed the casinos
huge amounts of money.

Just one year after his
first casino flutter,

Chia had run up
debts of $100,000,

but could not tell his wife.

- His ex colleague and
one of his close friends

he'd call them, desperately
seeking for money.

He asked to meet them.

One of them told
me he showed up and

Chia was not wearing
any shoes, he was like,

a person who looked
like he'd lost his mind.

- He was in a predicament.

It was a matter of
life and death for him.

And he feel that he can't
just let his family down.

And just leave the world,
and leave the family

with all the debts
and liabilities.

And he devised a scheme
and he did what he did.

- [Narrator] The happily
married accountant

was feeling crushed
by his dark secrets.

He had to find a way
out of his debts,

and was willing to do
whatever necessary.

- He needed the cash, and
he had to find a smart way

to do it without
being uncovered.

So wealth from a bank
came as a great idea.

Why, because nobody
would notice it.

He would just have to
borrow money from the bank,

seemingly on the behalf of APB.

That's where the bank
come into the picture.

- [Narrator] Two weeks after
joining Asia Pacific Breweries,

Chia opened a new account with

Scandinavian Bank,
SEB in APB's name.

The account came with a
credit facility for $500,000.

- Nowadays a bank would
require the people in charge

to come down to the branch
and to show their ID,

and to sign the person.

So that would've prevented
Chia from being able to

pull off the scheme,
he was able to do it

because well, just
himself, in his capacity

of financial manager was enough

the bank manager would
authorize the move.

- It really involves
a lot of risk.

Gambling is a risk, and
committing a crime to get money

is also a risk, so it
really revolves around

this individual's
risk taking behavior.

- It's a very interesting
link that's coming out of

recent research between
essentially biology

or biochemistry, which
is showing that as people

become more successful, so
for example in a fraudster,

the more they get
away with their fraud,

the more the testosterone
levels in their body rise.

Testosterone is the hormone that

basically makes
us blind to risk.

As people become more confident,

the more they get away with it,

the more risks
they tend to take,

and then sooner
or later of course

they take on too many
risks and they get caught.

- [Narrator] Fortune
began to smile on Chia.

He'd repaid his debts,
and by this time

he'd met his beautiful
18 year old girlfriend.

Somehow he was able to lead
a completely double life.

A high rolling gambler,
with a secret lover,

who seemed to be just
an innocuous accountant.

The banks he was dealing
with were totally taken in.

SEB extended $3
million in credit,

and Chia, found he
could easily get more.

- He said that they keep
calling and they keep offering

and that you know of course
we cannot blame the bank.

They are a financial
institution,

they want business, they want
more activity, they're ground.

And he was in that position.

By the end of the year, two
Japanese and one German bank

had all let him open
accounts in APB's name.

Key to the fraud was his
forgery of documents,

called, Board Resolutions.

He even checked which directors

liked to use what kind of pen,

and he bought the
exact type to practice.

These documents deceived the
banks into extending him loans

in the name of APB, with Chia,

apparently as the
sole signaturee.

- Well obviously the
risk with sole signaturee

is that he can do whatever
he wants on the account.

Then he's effectively
judge, jury,

and executioner on that account.

- [Narrator] Glenn Knight
is a former director

of Singapore's fraud
investigation unit.

The commercial
affairs department.

- He managed to get away with
one signature with one bank.

And he got carried away, so
he started with another bank.

So when he started
spending a lot of money

from the first bank, which
was the Scandinavian bank,

he would get money from
the Japanese bank and

then use that money to pay
off the Scandinavian bank.

- In short, actually
what he was doing

was robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And then he would use the money
from one to pay the other,

so it just rolled on and on.

- So it was a very smart
aspect of his fraud because

he didn't touch APB money,
so by this he ensured

that he wouldn't be
caught from APB side.

Wouldn't find anything
wrong, because,

simply the account
was not in APB books.

- This would assure
the trail of money's.

And of course here
you have Mr Chia,

and the DBS bank was like
the central bank for him,

where money's from all the other
banks would be channeled to

We have the SEB, it is
one of the first banks

that he got facility
from, and then

subsequently all the
other banks like Sumimoto,

Mitsui, the HPV,
the German bank,

they sent funds to the SEB
and from the SEB to the DBS.

This is where the Westpac
Bank in Australia,

was like the holding bank,
where most of the funds were.

- [Narrator] If just one
of them had contacted

another director of
APB, Chia's fraudulent

world would've
come crashing down.

But the banks didn't check.

- And so he could get
away with it then.

That's how he must be a real
genius to get away with it,

but you must know your banks,

you must know your
bank officers,

you must know exactly
what they are doing,

but you have to think
about everything.

- [Narrator] It was
like an unending

supply of gambling chips.

From $200 bets in
his Star Cruise days,

Chia had moved on to
much larger hands.

- The bets grew, and
you know he would place

like $20,000 Australian
dollars in Australian casinos,

his biggest bet
was like $400,000,

Australian dollars at Crown's.

- As a way to
rationalize, his behavior,

was by saying, I'm not
stealing, I've been successful

in my gambling, so
I'm just borrowing.

My intention is to pay it back.

I'm not stealing.

- [Narrator] By now Chia was
living a totally double life.

So while he was buying his
young girlfriend all the

finest jewelry,
clothes, and hand bags,

his family in Singapore didn't
see a crumb of his winnings.

- He wasn't living lavishly.

He lived in the same
house he did in Singapore,

he had properties, he had
drove the same old car,

and he told me that he did
not even buy a pair of shoes

for his sons with
any of the winnings.

- [Narrator] But Chia Teck
Leng did start to change.

- Eventually he became
very flamboyant.

From having a calculator
watch to all of a sudden

sporting a new gold Rolex, and

he upgraded his
car to a Mercedes.

Wasn't long before
he was charged.

We went up on the casino ship.

There was a table set right in
the middle of the whole room

and that was just for
him, and after the dinner,

I had all these people
saying who's this Chia?

I've never heard of him,
who is he, what's he do?

- [Narrator] As he grew
bolder, Chia also bought

a 530,000 dollar apartment
in Grange Road Singapore,

for Lee Ching to live in.

Then he went even
further to make sure

she would never be
far away from him.

- Lee Ching had a
Chinese passport,

which was very difficult for her

because she didn't have
a work permit here,

she was here on a tourist visa,

so all of a sudden one
day Mr Chia showed up

and she's got a
Taiwanese passport.

And he says you know
you've got money,

you can get anything, he
told me it was $10,000 US.

- [Narrator] He was
growing more reckless

in every aspect of his life.

- Mr Chia in front of
his family, in front
of his colleagues

his bosses he needs
to portray himself

as someone who is
okay, who is normal.

Who is following
his day to day role.

But when he goes
into this casino,

or some gambling venues, the
competitive the energetic

the thrill seeking part of him,

is getting unleashed, he just
turned into a different person

and he gets so sucked
in and associated.

- [Narrator] Chia Teck
Leng, had now been swindling

the four foreign banks for
three and a half years.

But then an employee at APB
noticed the company checks

were being paid to casinos,
and even to junkyard operators.

The commercial affairs
department was alerted.

- In my time what I would
do in a case like this was,

to put a senior officer
in charge of the case.

And say please look
into this, your team,

all of about five or six people,

led probably by a
superintendent of police.

- [Narrator] But
that didn't happen.

- What they did instead
was to give the case

to a young girl who
was new at the job,

and she was going to find
out what he was doing.

And I think they took about
four weeks, five weeks.

- [Narrator] The CAD
slowly began to dig

into Chia's travel movements
and credit card use.

Around this time Chia also
seemed to be feeling the strain.

- He was always in deep thought.

Always highly intelligent man.

I can remember one
night when my wife and I

had dinner with him, my
wife turned to me and said,

Mr Chia looks like
a very troubled man.

She saw something I didn't see.

- [Narrator] One and a half
months into the investigation

the CAD had worked out there
were four banks involved.

They also realized that
all the correspondence

from the banks was going
to Chia's home address.

But they didn't arrest
him, he was allowed

to continue gambling millions.

- He was involved in gambling.

They could've easily
stopped him straight away,

and then they put a stop on
him and you investigate it

straight away, but I
suppose in that case

they were taking a long time
to decide what had gone wrong.

I think they may
have able to stop him

in taking so much
money and that is

the only thing that
they did different.

- [Narrator] Finally,
another four weeks later,

Chia was called
to the APB office.

- He was called by the
directors to the office

because the ME's offices I
think were squaring APB on this

movement of funds from
Singapore to Australia.

And the arrow came
out to Mr Chia.

He was the finance
manager, and they found out

that there were some resolutions
that had been passed,

were not in fact, legitimate
resolutions by the board.

He felt that was it.

It was a sense of relief, he
was frightened, he was scared.

But at the same time relieved.

- [Narrator] He was arrested
and taken for questioning.

- I went for lunch,
Chia never showed up,

and also my guest
that was there,

was well where is he?

And I was calling and calling
and he wasn't answering.

His phone was switched off.

A bit later on we actually
went to Lee Ching's apartment,

she was crying they'd
taken everything.

All the gifts all the watches,

the police had come
in and taken them all.

She'd just been released.

- [Narrator] It was
a huge embarrassment

to the banks involved and a
massive job for the police.

- I can say this with
not qualification,

that if Mr Chia had not
given the kind of cooperation

and the kind of information
to the authorities,

to the investigating officers,

they would've taken a long time

to investigate the
case, because the,

way the funds were moved,
the channeled funds,

the places where he played,
the people he met with,

that would've taken time,
a long time, to discover.

- [Narrator] In March
2004, the trial began.

- That's when all the
things started adding up.

You know like the time
where he called me

to Shangri La hotel and
all of a sudden I'm there

with him entertaining
two Japanese people,

and when I look back
at it, you know,

the Japanese banks
were involved,

I realized that he was
saying well here's my boss.

- [Narrator] Selena Lum was
in court for the plea hearing.

- When he pleaded guilty,
it was obvious that he

actually lost a lot of
weight, and he looked really

kind of haggard,
his hair grayed.

His two sons brought
a letter to court,

pleading for
leniency to say that

he had been a good
father to them.

- The emotions are shown of
course when I read the letters

that his sons had
written for their father.

He was extremely
sad, he never wanted

to get his family involved,
especially his sons.

- [Narrator] On the
second of April, 2004,

Chia Teck Leng, was sentenced
to 42 years in jail.

- He got a really long sentence.

You could get less than
that for killing someone.

It was a chair.

Sort of threatened the security
of the financial system,

so I think that was really
a very very strong message.

- He is a genius, because he
could actually forge signatures

cause he could get
away with something

like this for four years.

- [Narrator] Chia was convicted
of stealing 117 million

Singapore dollars, he has
already served 10 years.

- And they say the
family do still see him.

His only regret is
that he can't be

with the family like
a normal family.

He tried to be
useful in the prison.

He's a bit more religious
now, he found religion.

And he doesn't really
think much about tomorrow.

- [Narrator] Lee Ching
spent four months

in jail for using
a forged passport.

She now lives in China while her

former lover serves
out his time.