Another City Harvest Church member charged over alleged sham transaction allowed to travel overseas

One of the senior church members embroiled in the City Harvest Church case was in court today to apply for permission to go overseas.

Investment manager Chew Eng Han told reporters that his application had been granted.

His bail has been increased to 1 million dollars.

He was previously out on bail of 500,000 dollars.

Chew would not say where he was going or for how long, except that it would be for multiple trips.

In July, church founder Kong Hee was also granted permission to travel.

Chew is one of six members of the church to face charges in what is believed to be the largest financial scandal to hit Singapore's charity sector to date.

Some 24 million dollars were allegedly transferred from the church's building fund account to two companies as bond investments.

These were alleged to be "sham transactions" meant to mask the diversion of the church's building fund to finance the music career of Ho Yeow Sun, wife of Kong Hee.

A further sum of 26 million dollars was allegedly used to create the impression that the sham bonds had been fully "redeemed", a process called "round-tripping".

Their lawyers will be back in court in October