Singaporean paedophile who posed as a medium to get nudes from Taiwanese minors gets jail
The State Courts in Singapore. (File photo: CNA/Calvin Oh)
SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man posed as a spiritual medium on Facebook, gaining the trust of young girls before asking them to send photos and videos of themselves in the nude on the pretext of performing exorcisms.
Taiwanese police traced the IP address to Singapore and provided information to the Singapore Police Force, who investigated and arrested the culprit.
Lee Wei Ming, 34, was sentenced to five months' jail on Tuesday (Nov 9). He pleaded guilty to three charges of possessing obscene films, with a fourth charge considered in sentencing.
The court heard that Lee created multiple fake personas on Facebook to lure young girls into sending him nudes.
He would first pretend to be a young girl and gain the trust of the victims, before pretending to be an elderly woman who could "sense evil spirits or bad auras" around the victims.
While posing as the elderly "medium", Lee would ask the victims to send photos and videos of themselves while naked in different poses.
He claimed to be able to exorcise or dispel the evil spirits or "bad aura", and would promise to delete the videos immediately after viewing them.
If the victims refused, he would pose as the little girl persona and pester the victims for nudes or threaten them by saying they would suffer bodily harm.
He would then use the photos and videos sent by the victims for his own sexual gratification.
The victims later felt they had been lied to and exploited, and lodged reports with the police in Taiwan. Taiwanese police provided information to SPF on Jun 4, 2019, about a case of child exploitation.
They said that three Taiwanese victims aged either 11 or 12 had been induced to send nude photos and videos to a person posing as a spiritual medium on Facebook. Screenings revealed that the IP address came from Singapore.
SPF investigated the case and traced the address to Lee's home in Jalan Jurong Kechil. They arrested him on Oct 24, 2019 and seized multiple computers, mobile phones and storage devices.
A total of 3,196 video files were found in the devices. Of these, 1,903 were found to be obscene, with 11 of them involving the three Taiwanese victims.
The youngest victim was an 11-year-old Taiwanese student. Lee had five videos of her performing various actions while naked.
The prosecutor called for at least six months' jail, saying that Lee used the Internet to prey on young and vulnerable victims, coercing them into making obscene films and sending them to him.
Lee has been diagnosed with paedophilic disorder, but the prosecution said that this was not a relevant mitigating factor as there was no evidence the disorder resulted in him being unable to control his actions.
Instead, he "demonstrated a high degree of premeditation" by targeting young girls on Facebook and chatting with them using multiple personas, said the prosecutor.
The judge allowed Lee to begin his jail term on Nov 16. For each charge of possessing obscene films, he could have been jailed up to a year and fined S$40,000.
