KUALA LUMPUR (March 29): Former investment banker Charles Chua Yi Fuan was sentenced to three years' jail and fined RM1 million after he pleaded guilty to one out of 17 charges for duping an investor to invest in a non-existent investment scheme which caused the investor to lose RM175,000 in 2018.

Chua, a former vice-president of debt markets at Hong Leong Investment Bank, pleaded guilty after the charges were read out to him before Sessions Court judge Kamarudin Kamsun.

Deputy public prosecutor Hashley Tajudin had told the judge that the prosecution and Chua’s lawyers were amicable in asking the court to take into account the other 16 outstanding charges when passing the sentence.

In meting out the sentence, Kamarudin took into consideration the 16 outstanding charges pursuant to Section 171A of the Criminal Procedure Code.

It states that in any criminal proceedings instituted by or on behalf of the public prosecutor where the accused is found guilty of an offence, the court, in determining and in passing sentence, may, with the consent of the prosecutor and the accused, take into consideration any other outstanding offence or offences which the accused admits to have committed.

This means that Chua has no more outstanding charges with the courts.

Chua had previously claimed trial to the other charges against him in June last year.

In all 17 charges in total, Chua told his victims that they were investing in investment schemes involving the subscription of securities, but the purported schemes did not exist and made the investors lose RM1.73 million between 2017 and 2019.

For the charge, Chua used his position as a Veep at Hong Leong Investment Bank to dupe a Lim Boon Bing to invest the RM175,000 in a sham “QSR” IPO and promised him returns on his investment of 8.5% for the first month and 10% for the subsequent months.

Chua at all material times knew that the QSR IPO was a sham and did not exist.

Chua was sentenced under Subsection 179(b) of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 for deceiving the victim.

The other deputy public prosecutors were Izzat Fauzan, Mohd Aerie Rashmond Rahman and Jonathan Chin Ter Yang while Chua was represented by lawyer Wong Woi Kang.

If Chua fails to pay his RM1 million fine, he faces an additional 12 months in jail.