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August 13, 2026

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SAF regular siphoned S$1.6 million from father, including S$533,800 in CPF funds

Even after his 62-year-old father detected the dipping bank balances, Tay Yi Cong posed as bank officers to delay being discovered and pretended to file a police report for him.

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SINGAPORE: A regular with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) became addicted to gambling, keeping up the habit even when he was posted to Taiwan for a stint.

To fund his gambling habit, he transferred S$1.6 million belonging to his adoptive father to himself, including S$533,800 from the 62-year-old man’s Central Provident Fund.

He also tried to delay discovery by pretending to lodge a police report on his father’s behalf. When he realised the police were closing in on him, he fled to Taiwan.

He surrendered a few months later after encountering an elderly shopkeeper who reminded him of his grandmother.

Tay Yi Cong, a 29-year-old Singaporean, was sentenced on Thursday (Aug 13) to seven years’ jail.

He pleaded guilty to seven charges of theft or cheating, with another 28 charges taken into consideration.

THE CASE

The court heard that Tay was a student from the National University of Singapore.

At the time of the offences, he was a regular officer and senior medic with the SAF, holding the rank of ME1-2.

Tay was addicted to playing baccarat at casinos in Singapore even before he went to Taiwan from late 2021 for SAF duties.

While in Taiwan, he turned to online gambling and underground casinos, incurring about S$60,000 in debt to multiple banks by December 2023.

Despite the mounting debts, Tay wanted to continue gambling, so he made plans to obtain money to do so.

In Taiwan, he shared a bunk with another regular, a 29-year-old man. On Dec 29, 2023, Tay unlocked his bunkmate’s phone while the man was sleeping and applied for a bank account, successfully guessing his bunkmate’s Singpass passcode.

A Standard Chartered bank account was opened in his bunkmate’s name, and Tay used it to apply for a loan of S$25,000 to be disbursed into his own bank account.

Tay used the money for personal expenses and gambling, and spent his winnings on luxury goods from Loewe, Balenciaga and Burberry.

He continued to gamble at local casinos when he returned to Singapore in January 2024.

Tay was banned from entering the Marina Bay Sands casino from Jan 30, 2024 after he stole a Rolex Oyster Datejust watch worth S$11,900 from a man there.

The watch was recovered and Tay went to Resorts World Sentosa Casino instead to continue gambling.

He transferred S$25,000 from his younger brother’s bank account to his own using the banking application on his brother’s phone.

DECEPTION ON HIS FATHER

After returning to Singapore, Tay decided to apply for bank loans and credit cards using his father’s particulars.

He knew that his father’s phone was not locked with a password.

Whenever it was unattended, Tay would access bank websites to apply for credit cards or loans, retrieving his father’s particulars from Singpass as the Singpass account was not secured by any password.

He was able to successfully apply for bank loans and credit cards from five banks.

When banks created loan accounts in his father’s name and deposited the loan proceeds into them, Tay accessed the accounts and transferred the money to himself.

He again spent the funds on gambling and luxury goods.

Tay first cheated the banks into disbursing a total of about S$380,558, saddling his father with the burden of repaying the sum.

When the offences went undetected, Tay felt emboldened and decided to transfer money from his father’s bank accounts to his own for gambling.

Because his father did not use biometrics as a form of authentication, Tay needed only to key in his father’s login details, kept in a book at home, to log into each banking application.

After transferring large sums from his father’s bank accounts to himself, Tay saw that he could get away with it and hatched a plan to withdraw funds from his father’s CPF, so he could place bigger bets.

THE CPF DECEIT

He knew that his father was eligible to withdraw his CPF monies, but realised that his father had to undergo a facial scan to effect a withdrawal.

To circumvent this security feature, Tay called his father on Jan 29, 2024, while impersonating a CPF staff member.

He claimed that CPF was performing a backend diagnosis that required Tay and his father to undergo facial scanning.

Tay then accessed the CPF website, scanned his face as part of the process of applying to withdraw funds from his father’s CPF account, before scanning his father’s face.

Tay’s father did not check what the scan was for, and simply did as asked.

Once the facial scanning was complete, Tay changed the daily withdrawal limit of his father’s CPF account and transferred a total of S$533,800 to his father’s bank account.

He then transferred the entire sum to himself. He spent it all at the Resorts World Sentosa Casino.

Between late January 2024 and early February 2024, Tay’s father noticed that his bank account balance was lower than he recalled.

He checked the transactions and saw outgoing transfers to his son’s account.

He called the POSB bank and told a staff member about this, while on loudspeaker mode next to his son.

The call ended abruptly when bank staff told Tay’s father that the issue raised should be settled within his own family, said the prosecutor.

The next day, Tay called his father pretending to be a bank manager. He told his father that the POSB account had been frozen due to issues with the banking system, wanting to prevent his father from logging into his banking app to check his bank balances.

Tay’s father did not doubt the purported manager and did not try accessing his POSB account after this.

Since Tay’s father thought he had temporarily lost access to his POSB account, he decided to use his OCBC account.

He realised the bank balance had also plummeted and told his son about this.

Tay told his father to call OCBC’s hotline. However, before this could be done, Tay called his father pretending to be an OCBC staff member.

He claimed that OCBC was experiencing a nationwide banking glitch and was investigating the matter.

To enhance his lies, Tay continued to call his father while posing as different bank staff members to give updates on when his bank accounts would be reinstated.

Unable to repay his father, Tay continued to delay discovery by falsely claiming that the Monetary Authority of Singapore was preventing the reinstatement of his bank accounts.

Tay’s father confided in him about the issues he was facing with the banks, asking why they were taking so long to resolve.

Tay offered to make a police report for his father, but instead forged one to make his father believe he had filed one.

He showed a copy of the forged report to his father and bought him a new phone as a birthday gift. He continued to use his father’s old phone to transfer his father’s savings to himself.

On Mar 11, 2024, during a meeting with his insurance agent, Tay’s father discovered the withdrawal of his CPF monies.

He submitted an inquiry and a CPF staff member lodged a police report.

A police officer called Tay’s father the next day about the report, and Tay overheard the conversation, which was again in loudspeaker mode.

When Tay realised it was only a matter of time before he was discovered, he boarded a flight to Taiwan and absconded.

Tay’s offences involving his father caused losses totalling S$1.6 million.

CONTINUED OFFENCES IN TAIWAN

After arriving in Taiwan, Tay met up with his former bunkmate. He had tried applying for a bank account using the bunkmate’s particulars earlier that month, but had failed.

While in Taiwan with his former bunkmate, Tay accessed the man’s banking application using a PIN he remembered from previously helping him make a transfer.

Tay transferred about S$11,900 to himself using his bunkmate’s credit card and used it for his daily expenses in Taiwan.

In April 2024, Tay met up with a colleague, a 46-year-old Singaporean man, who was an SAF regular deployed to Taiwan.

The pair were on such good terms that the regular had previously shared a list of passwords with Tay.

Without telling the regular that he was absconding, Tay used the man’s phone to transfer money to himself and apply for loans.

He spent the money on personal expenses, gambling and to travel to South Korea and the Philippines.

The charges involving the colleague amounted to S$168,155.

Sometime between late May 2024 and mid-June 2024, Tay was in South Korea when he saw an elderly shopkeeper who reminded him of his grandmother.

By this time, he was running out of funds. He told the shopkeeper about his offences the shopkeeper told him to turn himself in.

Tay booked a flight back to Singapore on Jun 17, 2024, and was arrested at Changi Airport. He has been remanded for more than two years.

Tay made only partial restitution of S$37,700 to his father.

The victims suffered total losses of about S$1.83 million.

SENTENCING

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ariel Tan said what was most reprehensible was how Tay cheated his own father.

This was a 62-year-old man who had saved up money in his CPF account to prepare for his retirement, but Tay had no qualms about lying to him repeatedly to cover up his tracks while robbing his father of his future, said Ms Tan.

Defence lawyer C K Teo said his client had pleaded guilty, saved resources and cooperated extensively with the authorities.

He said his client had returned voluntarily to face the music and bring an end to “months of madness”.

“He lost his soul to gambling,” said Mr Teo. “He has reflected for the past two years and he’s very remorseful.”

He said there was nothing he could say other than to plead for a sentence that is “not crushing”.

A bespectacled Tay appeared in court via video-link from his place of remand.

District Judge Kamala Ponnampalam told Tay that he faced a “whopping number of charges”.

“I find that this is easily the most deplorable set of cheating and theft offences I’ve encountered in recent times,” she said.

“The extent of your efforts to deceive knew no limits, and these are set out in detail in the (court documents). It should come as no surprise to you that the offences must attract a stiff sentence to have the appropriate deterrent effect.”

She treated Tay’s return to Singapore as a neutral factor, noting that he had also returned because he had run out of money.

CNA has contacted the Ministry of Defence for more information.

Source: CNA/ll(sz)

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