City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee and five church leaders were convicted in October 2015 of misappropriating about S$50 million in church funds to bankroll the pop-music career of Kong's wife, Ho Yeow Sun, in what prosecutors called the largest misuse of charitable funds in Singapore's legal history.
The Commercial Affairs Department began investigating the megachurch on 31 May 2010. After one of the longest criminal trials in Singapore's history, Kong, Serina Wee, Sharon Tan, Chew Eng Han, Tan Ye Peng and John Lam were found guilty on 21 October 2015 of criminal breach of trust. About S$24 million had been channelled into sham bonds via church-linked companies to fund the Crossover Project, an evangelistic bid to make Ho, performing as Sun Ho, a mainstream pop star in the United States. A further S$26 million was used in round-tripping transactions to cover their tracks.
The Crossover Project produced music videos such as China Wine, featuring rapper Wyclef Jean and depicting Ho as a Chinese exotic dancer in Jamaica, but the venture racked up millions in losses. The court noted, however, that the S$50 million was ultimately returned to the church and that there was no evidence of wrongful personal gain by the defendants, which kept sentences below the maximum.
Kong, seen by the court as the key man guiding his five accomplices, was sentenced to eight years' jail, with the others receiving between 21 months and six years. On 7 April 2017, a three-judge High Court panel reduced the sentences by a 2-1 majority after substituting the original charges of criminal breach of trust by an agent with the less serious offence of simple criminal breach of trust. Kong's term fell to three years and six months. The prosecution's bid to reinstate the longer sentences was rejected by the Court of Appeal on 1 February 2018, ending nearly eight years of legal battles.
Kong served his sentence at Changi Prison from 21 April 2017 to 22 August 2019, with a third remitted for good behaviour. Throughout the ordeal, thousands of City Harvest members, the church had some 17,500 congregants in Singapore, stood by their pastor, packing courtrooms in shows of support. Ho herself was never prosecuted.
The case gripped a city-state with little tolerance for corruption and raised enduring questions about the governance of religious organisations, the prosperity gospel the church preached, and how far faith can justify the means. Kong has since returned to preaching at City Harvest Church.