SINGAPORE, March 31 — In the latest development of a long-running court case, a magician-turned-consultant was sentenced to three years’ jail today for making multiple fraudulent claims from the Government’s Productivity Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme.

S Chandran, the sole proprietor of Paradize Consultancy, was also ordered to pay the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) a financial penalty of S$295,272 (RM910,657) — four times the amount cheated. 

He has to serve 30 more weeks behind bars if he cannot pay up.

He was found guilty last year of three charges under the Income Tax Act for helping three people to obtain S$73,818 in fraudulent PIC cash payouts and bonuses in 2014. He collected half of this amount for his personal benefit — around S$36,900.

Twists and turns

The 40-year-old Singaporean, who faces a total of 58 charges, has flip-flopped in his decisions throughout the court process, which began when he was charged in December 2016.

He had initially claimed trial but decided to throw in the towel during cross-examination. He then pleaded guilty in November 2018 to helping 49 applicants submit 58 fake claims.

The amount of cash payouts and bonuses listed in all of his charges totalled more than S$1.1 million, with over S$870,000 disbursed by Iras, the court previously heard.

But in April 2019, he retracted his guilty plea and went on trial for three of his charges. He was convicted of these last year. 

He then said he would like to plead guilty to his remaining charges but the hearing was adjourned several times.

Today, he changed his mind once more as he could not accept the statement of fact prepared by the prosecution. This led to his lawyer TS Sinnadurai discharging himself. 

Chandran told the court that he intends to appeal against the conviction and sentence. He remains out on a S$200,000 bail and the judge arranged for a pre-trial conference to deal with his remaining 55 charges.

Chandran goes by the name Ran Superman for his magician work, and founded the events companies Entertainment Paradize and Magical Wonderland.

What he did

The PIC scheme was introduced in 2010 to encourage businesses here to invest in productivity and innovation. 

Chandran began advertising his services as a PIC consultant and told three clients to list three local employees in their application forms, and got them to falsely state that they ran businesses generating a revenue of S$1,000.

The prosecution noted that Chandran “hand-held” one such claimant, who complied with every instruction, including signing on the PIC application form. This continued even after the application was initially rejected and subsequently reviewed by Iras.

Also forged documents

Iras prosecutor Norman Teo sought the sentence imposed, arguing that Chandran’s offences were planned and premeditated, as even after Iras disbursed the cash before auditing the claims, he continued to provide “template responses” to answer the tax agency’s queries.

He had also forged invoices, receipts and other documentation to give the claims a “cloak of legitimacy” if an audit were conducted.

Additionally,  Teo said Chandran had coerced software engineers to come up with fictitious invoices for mobile applications to create the impression that Paradize Consultancy spent S$5,000 per app when it was only S$500.

However, the prosecution’s witness showed that the apps never went “live” and that the websites he purportedly created for the claimants did not exist.

‘Suffered from mental anguish’

In mitigation, Chandran spoke about his family circumstances, saying his mother had cancer and that he is the sole breadwinner. 

“I’ve maintained a good character and celebrity status in society,” he told the court, saying he had “made Singapore proud on an international level” by breaking a Guinness World Record and winning multiple magician awards.

He also claimed to be suffering from a variety of illnesses such as asthma, lung disease, a heart condition, irritable bowel syndrome and major depression.

He said: “I suffered from mental anguish, anxiety and distress from the charges hanging over my head since Dec 30, 2016. I’m also anguished from my son being bullied in school… and my mother and wife being outcast due to local and international media attention from this case.”

He added that he is unable to pay the financial penalty and it would be a “heavy burden”.

“I’d like to say that I’m innocent. I’ve proven most of the points in the trial,” he told the court.

Offenders can be jailed up to five years or fined up to S$50,000, or punished with both, for fraudulently assisting others to obtain a PIC cash payout or bonus. They will also be given a penalty four times the amount. — TODAY