MONEY CAN BE A DRIVING force that pushes people to do many things, and sometimes commit crimes. In many cases, duplicity is at the heart of those crimes and in some cases, the desperation for money can even result in murder. Even in a country like Singapore, often touted as having a low crime rate, corruption and fraud cases occur and sometimes to the tune of millions of dollars.

The cases mentioned in this book are varied. They include heinous crimes like murder and kidnapping, as well as scams that involve large syndicates and for which the real masterminds may well still be at large. As society changes, so will the modus operandi of criminals as they come up with more creative ways of cheating. Some will try to cheat insurance companies in the hope of getting compensation, while others will move to the online space. Certainly, the opening of the two integrated resorts with casinos in Singapore provides an even greater opportunity and temptation for some to try their luck at cheating.

We might be tempted to ask how we can identify cheats, or untrustworthy employees because certainly, in some of the cases mentioned, such as the casino cheats or the SIA employee who stole millions from his company, the insider is a main player in the scam. However, there is no predetermined face or age or race to a criminal. The criminals in this book, or those accused of crime, cover a wide age range. Their socio-economic backgrounds are also vastly different.

Even charities are not spared and in two cases covered, it is the people at the top who are being taken to task for misuse of funds and abusing their position. As they ride on the wave of donor generosity, their own lifestyles or attempts at deception raise serious questions about their real intentions. Ren Ci Hospital’s CEO, Ming Yi, who is a monk, led a life of luxury even while performing death-defying feats to raise funds for poor families with hefty medical bills. The City Harvest Church has had six of its leaders arrested for a misuse of church funds and for attempts to falsify documents to cover up the misuse of millions of dollars.

Whatever their backgrounds, whatever their mode of operation, the cases in this book centre around one motivating factor – money.