Former law firm clerk admits misappropriating more than $122,000

A former law firm conveyancing clerk, who is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence following an appeal, has admitted to misappropriating three cheques amounting to more than $122,000 in total while he was working for the firm.

On Dec 1, Sufandi Ahmad, 45, pleaded guilty to one count each of criminal breach of trust and using a counterfeit stamp certificate in place of a genuine one linked to a certain property.

Details about the property have been redacted from court documents, and the prosecution said he committed the latter offence to deceive a bank into disbursing a loan for its purchase.

Sufandi was part of a group of people who worked together on a ruse which led to a bank being duped into disbursing mortgage loans totalling more than $5.1 million in relation to the sale of two houses.

In a 2024 statement, the police said the bank incurred a loss of more than $1.79 million on the two properties.

In August that year, Sufandi was sentenced to 6½ years’ jail over two counts of cheating and five counts of using forged documents as original copies.

For the current case, the prosecution said that he worked as a conveyancing clerk for the law firm from 2004 to 2012.

Deputy public prosecutors (DPPs) Joseph Gwee and Matthew Choo, as well as Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) prosecutor Ian Yang, stated in court documents that Sufandi’s duties included collecting cheques issued by the firm’s clients.

These clients had handed over the cheques for specific purposes linked to their property purchases. They included payment of deposits for transactions involving conveyancing, the legal process of transferring a property’s title from one owner to another.

Between Feb 18 and Aug 5, 2010, Sufandi was entrusted with three cheques from two of the law firm’s clients, for more than $122,000 in total.

The money was supposed to be used to pay for stamp duties and deposits.

Instead, he deposited the cheques into his bank account and used the ill-gotten gains for his personal benefit.

In a bid to cover his tracks, he later used his own money and the firm’s funds to make payments, such as stamp duties.

Separately, Sufandi was also responsible for handling the conveyancing matters relating to a certain property.

The court heard that all legal and conveyancing documents pertaining to the property had to be submitted to a bank to satisfy its conditions for loan release by the completion date of April 19, 2012.

The bank had asked for documents including a stamp certificate relating to the property’s sale and purchase agreement.

The prosecutors told the court that on or around April 12 that year, Sufandi submitted a counterfeit stamp certificate to the bank.

They added: “Investigations revealed that the accused had created the counterfeit stamp certificate by physically cutting the top watermark and the IRAS logo from another stamp certificate, pasting it onto a piece of paper and making a copy.

“He subsequently typed out the relevant details of the property on the fictitious stamp certificate and printed it out on the photocopied letterhead.”

Sufandi’s offence came to light when a bank officer found out that a purchaser’s name was not correctly spelt on the bogus certificate.

He was later arrested in December 2019.

On Dec 1, the DPPs urged the court to sentence Sufandi to up to 13 months and six weeks’ jail, adding that he should serve this sentence after completing his current one.

They told the court: “The accused (had been) reposed with a moderate quality and degree of trust... The accused had employed the misappropriated sums for his own personal benefit through cash withdrawals, fund transfers, point-of-sale transactions and CashCard payments.”

Sufandi will be sentenced on Jan 2, 2026.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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