Editor's note: The following was translated and edited from an article that appeared in the sports section of the Chinese news portal Sina.com. It concerns a Singaporean administrator of a prominent design school in Guangzhou who admitted last year to embezzling 1,757,000 RMB of the school funds to feed his online gambling addiction. In a recent ruling, the court decided against deporting the man back to Singapore out of sympathy for the man's girlfriend's parents, who sold their house to help him pay back the debt.

Last year, the executive vice-dean of a private school in Guangzhou, a Singaporean national, admitted to having gambled away 1,757,000 RMB of the school's funds on sports, prompting his girlfriend's parents to sell their house to pay for the damages. In consideration of their sacrifice, the City Intermediate People's Court of Guangzhou has now decided against deporting the man, instead lessening his punishment to four years in prison.

Misappropriation of school funds

Singaporean national Francis Lim was until recently an executive vice-dean of the Raffles Design Institute in Guangzhou, a venture of the Singapore Raffles Education group in Mainland China. As an executive vice-dean in charge of marketing and operations at Raffles Guangzhou, Lim enjoyed a handsome salary of 350,000 RMB per year. Unfortunately for him and his family, however, Lim was also hopelessly addicted to online gambling. According to the official charge, Lim fabricated expense advances on 27 occasions between January and October of 2011 for a total of 1,757,000 RMB of misappropriated funds, which he proceeded to spend on online sports gambling. According to Lim, his addiction of more than a year had already cost him over 2,000,000 RMB in losses.

On October 12, 2011, Lim submitted his official resignation to the Raffles Design Institute, also sending a personal message to the administration of the China branch of its parent organization, Singapore Raffles Education Group, in which he admitted to his criminal behavior. When asked why he would come clean of his own accord before being discovered, Lim's voice took on a somber tone: “Because at that time, I knew I was already in too deep.” As a gesture of sincerity of his apology, Lim offered his passport to the school for custody. After an investigation by Raffles headquarters, Lim paid 494,500 RMB towards restoring the lost sum, unable to come up with the remaining 1,262,500 RMB himself. On February 13, 2012, the institute filed a case with police authorities following Lim's departure. On May 4, Lim was caught and detained attempting to leave the country via Chongqing.

Girlfriend's parents sell their house to repay the debt

Aside from several representatives from the school, Lim's girlfriend was also present in the courtroom at his trial, holding her face in her hands and crying. Lim, as he stood trial in sandals and brown-rimmed spectacles, offered no objection to the charges against him. Lim stated he had no intention of fleeing his obligations; he was simply attempting to return to Singapore to borrow money.

As Lim's attorney indicated, Raffles's regulations mandate that expense advances in excess of 1,000 Singapore dollars must be approved by both the regional deputy director and the regional financial affairs director. However, the Raffles Institute of Guangzhou has no such positions, and none of the millions of RMB of cash advances made by Lim had ever been approved by superiors. And according to official testimony from the Institute's financial management, all expense advances to Lim were approved “out of trust” and thus not in accordance with company policy or standard financial operating procedure. In addition, no problems with Lim's expense advances were ever discovered during biannual financial inspections from Raffles headquarters.

Lim's lawyer also made it clear that most of the money returned to the school was provided by Lim's girlfriend's parents, who managed to scrape together more than 400,000 RMB—despite receiving a retirement pension of only 1000 RMB monthly—by selling their house in Chongqing. Out of consideration for their sacrifice, Lim's sentence was reduced to less than five years in prison.

Chinese criminal law dictates that foreigners who commit a crime in China are subject to permanent deportation. However, as explained by the court during the verdict, the decision not to deport Francis Lim was motivated by both the forgiving attitude of his girlfriend and the financial sacrifice of her parents.

After considering the circumstances surrounding the case, including the sum mishandled and Lim's admission of guilt, the court issued a sentence of four years in prison and the continued repayment of his debt. Lim has stated he will not appeal the ruling.

Source: sina.com
 

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Keywords: Francis Lim scandal Raffles Design Institute Guangzhou Raffles Design Institute embezzlement online gambling addiction China