SINGAPORE, July 25 — A car salesman sold a client’s Porsche without permission in 2017, then used the money to buy a house in Bangkok. He was arrested when he returned to Singapore in 2019 but skipped bail until his arrest in March this year.
During his time at large on bail, Lim Wei Qiang, 40, operated as a Grab driver using his brother-in-law’s identity.
On Wednesday, Lim was sentenced to 25 months in jail, after pleading guilty to four charges: Two counts of cheating by personation, one count of criminal breach of trust, and one count of removing the gains of criminal conduct from the jurisdiction.
Another three charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Selling a Porsche
Lim was working as a car salesman at “SG Carline”, where he became acquainted with the client, a 39-year-old Swiss man.
On Dec 13, 2016, the man bought a black-coloured Porsche Cayenne 3.6L from SG Carline for S$96,624, and Lim handled the sale of the vehicle.
This was the second vehicle that the man had bought from SG Carline with Lim facilitating the deal.
On Nov 21, 2017, the man phoned Lim to inform him that the Porsche had a faulty headlight and asked for help with a repair.
In response, Lim offered free servicing for the Porsche in addition to the requested repair.
Lim said that he had recently sold another Porsche and that vehicle still had some outstanding service credits that could be used.
The man agreed to Lim’s request to hand over his identification card so that this could happen.
Lim cooked up the offer and the story of the credits above just to get the man to hand over his identification card along with his Porsche.
That night, Lim contacted a manager at Sportsway Auto Trading — a used car dealer — and asked if he wanted to buy the car. The manager agreed and made an offer of S$53,454.
On the morning of Nov 22, 2017, Lim met the Swiss man to get the car keys and the man's identification card.
Later that day, Lim drove the Porsche to a Land Transport Authority (LTA) branch and asked for a “transfer of ownership PIN” using his client’s identification card.
As a result of Lim’s false representation, the LTA officer issued a transaction PIN for the purpose of facilitating the transfer of ownership of the Porsche.
That done, Lim drove the Porsche to the Sportsway Auto Trading office where he handed the car, the PIN number and his client’s identification card to the manager.
The manager then issued a cheque for S$53,454 to Lim, who cashed the cheque later that day.
With the cash in hand, Lim boarded a flight to Bangkok, Thailand, at about 2.45pm that afternoon and used the money to buy a house in Bangkok.
Separately, Sportsway Auto Trading sold the Porsche to 1 Auto Co, a company that made arrangements to export the vehicle.
The estimated value of the Porsche at the time of the offence was S$75,321. To date, Lim has not made any restitution for the misappropriated car.
On Nov 24, 2017, the Porsche was seized by the police from 1 Auto.
After a disposal inquiry was held on Oct 1, 2018, the Porsche was ordered to be given to 1 Auto with the following two conditions:
• Sportsway Auto Trading was to pay 1 Auto the sum of S$9,460
• A representative of 1 Auto was to transfer the Porsche’s original owner, the Swiss man, the sum of S$18,920
Returned to Singapore, cheated Grab
After spending more than one-and-a-half years in Thailand, Lim returned to Singapore on July 25, 2019, and was arrested.
He was granted bail the next day, and his case was fixed for a plead-guilty mention before the courts on Oct 1, 2021.
However, Lim absconded, which led to the issuance of a warrant to arrest him. He remained at large until he was arrested in Singapore on March 25 this year. — TODAY
While at large, Lim worked as a Grab driver under a different identity.
Lim had previously applied for a private-hire car driver’s vocational licence sometime on or after Oct 1, 2021, when he was on the run, but LTA had rejected his application.
Sometime on or before July 6 in 2022, Lim was at home in Singapore when he noticed that his brother-in-law had left his wallet behind in the living room when he went to the gym.
Lim then took his brother-in-law’s identification card, driving licence, and private-hire car driver’s vocational licence without his consent.
He then proceeded to apply for a Grab driver’s account that same day.
He submitted the application at 11.25pm and it was approved by Grab the next day.
For the next seven months, Lim worked as a Grab driver and accepted a total of 6,357 bookings from customers.
Court documents did not state if Lim's brother-in-law was aware that Lim had been using his account to operate as a private-hire car driver.
While working as a Grab driver, Lim also began using Grab’s Shop Now Pay Later plan to make online purchases, a scheme available only to drivers.
Between Aug 11 and Dec 10 in 2022, he made 10 purchases amounting to S$8,314 through this plan.
Of these, he repaid S$5,787.87 through deductions from his salary as a Grab driver.
He also applied for five loans amounting to S$8,091.34 from Grab, between Oct 28, 2022 and March 13, 2023. To date, he has repaid S$1,876.89 through his salary deductions.
He has not made any further restitution to Grab. The total loss incurred by Grab from Lim’s actions stands at S$9,557.24.
For cheating by personation, Lim could have been jailed for up to five years or fined, or both.
For committing criminal breach of trust, he could have been jailed for up to seven years or fined, or both.
For removing benefits gleaned from criminal conduct from the jurisdiction, he could have been jailed for up to 10 years or fined up to S$500,000, or both.
