21-year-old scam victim who became money mule says loansharks still harass her

SINGAPORE: A few months were all it took for Lisa (not her real name), 21, to spiral from being a victim of scam to a perpetrator of crime.

She started with legitimate intentions to get a S$30,000 loan from a licensed moneylender, but ended up losing even more cash in a loan scam while getting viciously harassed by loansharks.

To top it off, Lisa was threatened into giving up her ATM card, and her account was used to transfer illicit funds. She was eventually given a conditional warning by the police for being a money mule.

Latest figures released by the police in August showed another increase in scams - 85 per cent up in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year - driving up the total reported cases of crime.

The Government also announced in March that it intends to make it easier for money laundering offences to be prosecuted at lower levels of culpability, by amending the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, likely in the fourth quarter of this year.

"Today, a large proportion of investigations into money mules do not result in prosecutions, due to the inherent difficulties in proving the money mule’s intent to participate in moving monies for scam syndicates," Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan had said.

When asked how it felt like being both a victim and accused, Lisa told reporters on Thursday (Aug 25) that she feels “bad”. “But at the same time, I’m still scared because they did harass my family,” she said.

Lisa’s desire to care for her family was how she got into this situation in the first place.

In December 2020, she was barely earning S$2,000 a month as an auxiliary security officer when she gave birth to a boy.

Her jobless husband used her money for his personal expenses, she said, adding that he quickly grew tired of caring for the baby.

Lisa, who also has a daughter - then 5 years old - living in Malaysia with an uncle, decided to go back to work during her confinement period.

“He was not helping in anything ... I needed to support my family and pay the outstanding bills,” she said. “And if I had enough money, I would go back to study. Because Singapore is all about (having) the certificate.”

Lisa said her thoughts went “haywire” as she went on the Internet to search for moneylenders.

She found a company with a name and website that looked legitimate enough, so she clicked on an icon to get in touch via WhatsApp.

This was the beginning of Lisa’s months-long nightmare that revolved around persistent demands for money as well as threats to her family, before culminating in her being investigated as a money laundering suspect.

The moneylender asked Lisa, a Singapore permanent resident, for her personal details before releasing the loan. So, she sent pictures of her payslips as well as her Singapore and Malaysia identity cards.

The first red flag was when the moneylender asked her to pay an administrative fee amounting to 10 per cent of the loan.

“They told me this after I gave my details,” she said. “I was having doubts. Why do I need to pay when I never received what I wanted to borrow?”

When Lisa refused to pay, the man started berating her. He sent audio notes threatening her family and videos of front doors getting drenched in paint, a common intimidation technique employed by loansharks.

“I was scared,” she said. “I was panicking and I didn’t know what to do. I just transferred whatever amount I had.”

Lisa eventually paid the man S$3,000, but instead of getting her loan, the man demanded that she settle a late fee as well.

She insisted that she had no money left, but the harassment continued. The man said he did not care about her circumstances, warning her that she needed to pay the fee by a certain deadline.

Around that time, Lisa made a police report online, believing that she had been scammed and fearing for her children. She also told her family about what happened. They got angry and pressed her to ignore the threats and not transfer more money.

As Lisa waited for a response from the police, her family’s advice was less reassuring. She said she felt “alone” throughout her ordeal. “I was still panicking and I actually didn’t know what to do. I continued finding ways to pay them,” she added.

She soon cracked under the pressure and dipped into the “little bit” of savings she had left to pay off the admin fee.

In January 2021, her troubles escalated when more loansharks started harassing her and claiming she owed money. She suspected that her details were used to borrow from other illicit moneylenders.

To deter the loansharks, police officers installed a closed-circuit television camera outside her home for a period of time. Lisa said this could be why she has not been physically harassed.

TRANSITION TO MONEY MULE

One of the loansharks soon offered Lisa some kind of solution: If she handed over her ATM card, she could get about S$300 a month, ostensibly to service her debts.

Lisa was told she would get more money if she gave more ATM cards. At her wits’ end, she surrendered the cards to her three bank accounts.

“I was having doubts also but I was scared. Because while they talked about this, they kept threatening about the money that I (supposedly) owed,” she said.

Police told CNA that scammers recruit mules to transfer stolen money on their behalf.

Common schemes include jobs that allow people to earn attractive salaries while working from home and performing "relatively easy" tasks, like using their personal bank account to receive and transfer money.

Mules are also asked to relinquish their Singpass, which may subsequently be used to register companies and open bank accounts.

"The offer can be between S$200 to S$2,000 for each bank account or Singpass relinquished, but most of the mules did not get their monies," police said.

Indeed, Lisa said she never received any of the promised remuneration and could not check what her accounts were being used for. Her bank account PIN and online banking credentials were changed, and she said the bank could not attend to her unless she produced an ATM card.

On the back end, one of the banks flagged Lisa’s accounts to the police, suspicious that despite her modest income, tens of thousands of dollars were flooding through them each day.

Worse still, the harassment and demands to settle her phantom debt carried on.

Whenever Lisa agreed to pay something, the loansharks quickly gave her a list of bank accounts with corresponding amounts to transfer to. This is typical of how criminal syndicates operate, to complicate the money trail and take advantage of other victims.

"In general, a money mule’s actions help to perpetuate the criminal syndicate’s operations by aiding them to move the ill-gotten gains to avoid police’s detection," police said.

THREATS BECOMING REAL

While Lisa was still physically safe, the threats to her family were acted upon.

In Malaysia, loansharks splashed paint on another uncle’s house - not where her daughter lives - and later her grandmother’s house, the address of which was on her Malaysia identity card.

Because her Singapore identity card had her own address, she worried that it was only a matter of time before the loansharks got to her.

She said her husband had, against her wishes, previously whisked their son away for a week, and she feared that the loansharks could also take her child.

When Lisa told the loansharks that she was in contact with the police, they got even more brazen and challenged officers to catch them.

Police started collating information about Lisa’s case - including the first report she made on the harassment - and summoned her for an interview sometime in March 2021. Lisa said she was “shocked” when she saw a letter from the police in the mailbox.

Lisa said she knew why she was being questioned, and insisted that she did not know what her account was being used for. The investigation officer considered the circumstances and eventually gave her a two-year conditional warning for being a money mule.

The police warned that people could still be prosecuted for being money mules even if they claim to be unaware of what they have done.

"Police would like to caution the public against dealing with money from unknown sources or assisting in the transfer and receipt of money without a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore," it said.

"You should always reject requests to use your personal bank accounts to receive and transfer money for others."

Ultimately, the police said it takes a tough stance against money mule activities, adding that those convicted of money laundering could be jailed up to 10 years and fined up to S$500,000.

"If the money that you receive and transfer is stolen money or linked to crimes, you may be investigated and charged for committing a criminal offence," it stated.

ORDEAL NOT OVER

Lisa said she continues to get harassed by loansharks to this day, citing how she sometimes get calls from them on numbers that look identical to that of her friends’.

“When I answer, it’s actually a loanshark,” she said, adding that she would immediately say no and hang up when a stranger mentions her name. “It never ends, because they still contact me from time to time.”

Lisa said the entire incident has made it very difficult for her to trust people. She acknowledged that a mixture of fear and the fact that she had parted with cash made it difficult for her to escape the clutches of loansharks.

She lost more than S$5,000 in total, a sum she is not hopeful of getting back. She advised youths tempted to make a quick buck to find a job instead, and if they really needed to borrow money, to look for licensed moneylenders and visit their premises.

The Ministry of Law's website has a list of licensed moneylenders.

Lisa said her decision to click on that WhatsApp icon and chat with the first moneylender was the moment that changed her life.

“I mean, if I never did that, all these wouldn’t have happened,” she added.

THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND IT

It is worth noting that Lisa's case is a little different from typical scam or money mule cases that involve some form of a carrot and stick approach. Lisa never received a single cent before being sucked into the scheme.

Mr Lee Rong Cheng, lead psychologist at the Singapore Police Force, said the circumstances in Lisa's case appeared to be "very drastic".

"The scammers may not think that there is a need to dangle any very significant carrot for her to be obliging to the scammer's suggestions, because the need on the victim's end is already so high," he explained.

"So in that sense, we can also see this as a resource management part on the scammer's end. As a whole, they are an organisation thinking of how to better allocate their resources as well. And this may have played out in this way for this particular victim."

Still, Mr Lee pointed out that the scammer still dangled some form of reward in the middle of the scheme, by urging Lisa to hand over her bank accounts under the guise of facilitating quicker returns.

"The victim will not hesitate to do so, because they are just so much in a sense of anxiety and fearfulness that their commitment will go to waste," he said.

"Thus, they will just oblige to all the scammer's suggestions, and in turn, they unwittingly become money mules."

This fear stems from the constant harassment, Mr Lee said, noting that scammers will "make you feel that they know a lot about you: Where you stay, what you normally do, who are in your family".

"It gives you a very negative experience that you're now being targeted by someone, and that makes the person increasingly fearful of what else may happen," he said. "What if I need to take my kids to school? Do they know where my kids are studying?"

This leads to a "continued sense of paranoia" that further prevents the victim from making logical decisions, Mr Lee continued.

"It makes them potentially more vulnerable to suggestions from the harasser, like maybe this is the way to go to get out of this situation," he added.

"That tunnel vision actually works in the favour of the scammer."

MORE YOUNG PEOPLE INVOLVED IN SCAMS

Another factor could be age.

A majority of those arrested for their involvement in scams in the first half of 2022 were aged 20 to 29, the latest police figures revealed.

Of the total number of people police arrested in 2019 to 2021 for their involvement in scams reported in the year of their arrest, around 38 per cent were aged 20 to 29.

When asked if younger people like Lisa were more susceptible to wanting to make a quick buck and ending up as money mules, Mr Lee said they could be a "little bit more impressionable".

"At the youth stage, the brain development hasn't matured yet, especially in terms of your prefrontal cortex that governs executive decision making," he added.

"And thus, youth in general may find it harder to resist temptation."