By Jite Eriabie
Two men were charged on Monday with cheating a shipping company of $1.5 million.
Frenchman David Weidmann, 36, and Romanian Iosiff Kiss, 39, are accused of cheating the Oceanic Group at around 7.40pm last Saturday.
They allegedly duped the firm into believing that they are collecting a commission sum of $1.5 million to buy a vessel.
As a result, they allegedly induced one Daniel Chui Mun Yew to authorise the release of the cash. Chui is the founder and managing director of the Oceanic Group, which offers products and services related to the cruise and leisure industry.
The police said on Sunday that the seller in France, who was about to close the sale of the vessel discovered that the deposit he received was in counterfeit notes. At that time, the two men were in Singapore to collect a sales commission for the sale of the vessel.
The victim informed the Singapore office to stop the sales commission, but by then, the two men had left with the commission of about S$1.5 million.
The court heard $400,000 of the $1.5million has been recovered.
The two Europeans are accused of committing the offence with several other unknown persons.
Both of them will be remanded at Central Police Division and their case will be next heard on Sept 11.
Offenders convicted of cheating can be jailed up to 10 years and fined.
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