Two foreigners jailed for being money mules in transnational police impersonation scam
SINGAPORE — Acting as money mules in a transnational police impersonation scam, two foreign nationals collected almost S$200,000 from five mostly elderly victims here.
For their roles in the criminal operation, Chen You-Jeng, 34, and Hsieh Teng-Chia, 31, were sentenced to 36 and 33 months' jail respectively on Tuesday (Sept 4).
The Taiwanese duo had pleaded guilty last month to one count each of assisting another to retain benefits from criminal conduct.
A third Taiwanese man, Huang Ying-Chun, 53, who acted as a runner for the syndicate, was jailed for six-and-a-half years in June. The High Court is set to hear his appeal against his sentence next month.
A fourth Taiwanese man, Huang's co-accused Chen Peng-Yu, 35, is expected to be sentenced next month as well.
During sentencing, District Judge Salina Ishak noted that the pair came to Singapore for the sole purpose of committing their offences. She also highlighted the increasing prevalence of impersonation scams in Singapore.
Mid-year crime statistics released by the police last month showed a staggering 214 per cent increase in the number of "China officials" impersonation scams. There were 58 of such cases in the first half of last year, compared to 182 in the same period this year.
The total amount cheated under such scams also increased to about S$6 million in the first half of 2018, from about S$1.8 million over the same period last year.
HOW THE SCAM WORKED
Between June 15 and July 6 last year, five victims, aged between 51 and 83, received phone calls from people claiming to be Chinese or Singapore police officers.
The scammers convinced the victims that they were involved in money laundering cases or other serious offences, which were being investigated in China, and that their bank accounts or cards were implicated in the offences.
They were also led to believe that unless they co-operated with the callers' purported investigations — which included handing over login credentials to their Internet banking accounts — they would be prosecuted by the authorities.
With the banking details, the scammers transferred money out of the victims' accounts to third parties, before subsequently pressuring the third parties to withdraw the money they received to money mules.
THE DUO'S ROLE
Early last year, learning that Hsieh was short on cash, Chen You-Jeng recruited the 31-year-old to act as a middleman in Singapore for the crime syndicate.
Chen was promised about S$2,600 for recruiting Hsieh, while Hsieh was to be paid S$3,300 for a month's work.
On July 5 last year, the pair arrived in Singapore for the first time. They met up with Chen Peng-Yu, who instructed Hsieh over the messaging app Telegram to collect and hand over money which he received over the next two days.
That same day, a 73-year-old retiree was fleeced of S$10,000, which was transferred into 29-year-old Li Wenjia's account. An unknown person who claimed to be from the police told Ms Li to withdraw the money and hand it over to Huang at Lorong 17 Geylang.
Huang then left the money in the toilet of a coffee shop. Chen Peng-Yu told Hsieh to collect the money and leave it in the toilet of another coffee shop, which was in turn collected by Chen Peng-Yu.
On July 7, 2017, a Mr Koh Eng Tiong was told to withdraw S$75,000, which had been transferred to his bank account from a 83-year-old victim, and hand the money to Hsieh at the void deck of a Hougang block of flats.
Hsieh then took S$1,000 from the stash for his own expenses, before leaving the remaining money in a toilet at Parklane Shopping Centre for Chen Peng-Yu to collect.
On that same day, the two Chens checked into the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, where Chen Peng-Yu consolidated the money he had on hand.
In all, Hsieh collected and handed over S$185,000. No restitution has been made.
The criminal operation came to light on July 5 last year, when a 55-year-old woman reported losing about S$225,000, after taking a call from someone claiming to be a police officer. Huang was arrested the next day.
