On October 21, 2015, City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee and five church leaders were found guilty of misappropriating S$50 million in church funds, in one of the longest criminal trials in Singapore's history. The court ruled that about S$24 million had been channelled through sham bond investments into music production firm Xtron and glass maker Firna to bankroll the pop-music career of Kong's wife, Ho Yeow Sun, while a further S$26 million was used to cover their tracks.
The scheme centred on what the church called the Crossover Project, launched in 2002 to evangelise through Ho's secular music career. Ho, who performed as Sun Ho, had released Mandarin albums through Warner Music Taiwan, and a video for her English single China Wine, in which she danced intimately with rapper Wyclef Jean, drew criticism that she had betrayed her calling as a pastor's wife. Prosecutors argued the bonds were a fiction designed to move building funds into the project, calling it the largest amount of charity funds ever misappropriated in Singapore's legal history. Kong and the other leaders, Serina Wee, Sharon Tan, Chew Eng Han, Tan Ye Peng and John Lam, had all denied the charges, and the church stood by them throughout the trial.
On November 20, 2015, Kong was sentenced to eight years in jail, with the others receiving between 21 months and six years. The case gripped a city-state with little tolerance for corruption, where the mix of faith and fraud was almost unheard of. But the legal battle was far from over. On appeal, a three-judge High Court panel ruled 2-1 in April 2017 to substitute the original charges of criminal breach of trust by an agent with the less serious offence of simple criminal breach of trust, reducing Kong's sentence to three and a half years. The prosecution's bid to reinstate the longer terms was rejected by the Court of Appeal on February 1, 2018.
Kong was released on August 22, 2019, after serving about two-thirds of his sentence, and was greeted by supporters outside the prison. His wife, who was never charged, continues to sit on the board of City Harvest Church, which still counts some 17,500 members. The case left a lasting mark on Singapore's charity sector, sharpening scrutiny of how religious organisations handle donations and blurring, for many observers, the line between prosperity gospel and personal enrichment.
The human drama surrounding the case was as compelling as the financial details. When the Court of Appeal delivered its final ruling in February 2018, Kong arrived in purple prison garb, his hair noticeably greyed, and smiled and waved to more than 50 supporters, some of whom had waited outside the court from 6am. Chew Eng Han, one of the six convicted leaders, later received a longer jail term after attempting to leave Singapore unlawfully. Throughout the saga, City Harvest Church preached a prosperity gospel blending spiritual and material aspirations, and its congregation largely stood by its leaders, packing courtrooms and prayer sessions. To supporters, Kong was a visionary pastor being punished for unorthodox but well-intentioned fundraising; to prosecutors, he was the architect of the largest charity fraud in the nation's legal history. That divide, between faith in a leader and faith in the law, is what made the City Harvest case resonate far beyond the courtroom.