SINGAPORE — A fraudster wanted to trick a woman into moving S$50,000 for him from Singapore to Johor Baru in Malaysia, so the money could not be traced back to him.
Christina Cheong turned the tables on him by pocketing the money. However, the part-time English teacher ended up falling prey to other scammers, and spent only S$1,000 on herself.
The bizarre tale of scammers getting scammed in the online dating world emerged in the State Courts where Cheong, 63, pleaded guilty on Wednesday (May 29) to one charge of dishonest misappropriation of property.
District Judge Ng Peng Hong called for a report to assess whether Cheong is suitable for a mandatory treatment order — a community sentencing option offered to offenders suffering from mental conditions that contributed to the offence.
Cheong’s lawyer had told the court that she suffered from major depressive disorder, which went undiagnosed and untreated in the years leading up to her offence. It had impaired her judgement, the lawyer added.
MULTIPLE SCHEMES GOING ON
The court heard that in early August 2017, Cheong got to know someone identified only as Collins through the online dating application Badoo.
Cheong lied to Collins that she was in debt and she had lost everything, as a thief on a bike had snatched her handbag. She asked him to help her pay her rent and said that she did not want to sleep on the streets.
Collins said that he loved her and wanted to help her.
On Aug 16, 2017, he suggested an arrangement for money to be deposited into her account, which involved his “boss’ associates”, and she could withdraw it and take it to Johor Baru with their help.
Cheong then gave Collins the details of her DBS bank account.
Unknown to her, Collins was also a scammer himself, and was trying to cheat another Singaporean woman through an online love scam. He told the other woman that he needed money to clinch a contract, but had no access to his own money as it was being held by “Keppel”.
He told the other woman to transfer about S$50,000 to Cheong’s DBS bank account. She did so. Cheong has since made full restitution to this woman.
After the woman transferred the sum into Cheong’s account, Collins then told Cheong to withdraw the money. He said that one of his boss’ associates would call her and take the money from her.
He also asked Cheong for details of her second bank account, so his boss could transfer S$26,000 to her and give her S$1,000 from the transaction. At the same time, he warned her not to use an ATM to withdraw the full S$50,000.
Suspicious, she asked him over WhatsApp if the money was legal, but did not receive a clear answer.
On Aug 17, 2017, she told Collins that she was at the bank and talking to its staff members about the money. He instructed her to tell them that a friend in Singapore sent it to her for personal reasons.
When Cheong told him that she could only withdraw up to S$2,000 a day, he asked if she could increase her withdrawal limit, but she paid no heed to him. She also ignored his repeated queries about the money, making excuses and ignoring his WhatsApp voice calls.
Finally, on Aug 27, 2017, he called her a “thief” over WhatsApp.
She asked him if they had a contractual agreement, and added: “We will see what the police will say about you using accounts for your payments.” She then blocked him on the phone.
She ended up using part of the S$50,000 for her own expenses, but was ultimately tricked by other scammers.
One of them, identified only as Mark Anthony, was a man Cheong was in love with.
Mark Anthony told Cheong that he was being detained by the Malaysian authorities for having too much money, and that an immigration officer, known only as Jasmin, could help him. On Jasmin’s instructions, Cheong transferred S$31,000 to a Malaysian CIMB bank account.
In another instance, Cheong also transferred S$19,000 to various foreign bank accounts. A scammer called Chong Lee told her to do this, having promised to give Cheong S$800,000 for her help as part of an inheritance scam.
Cheong is due to be sentenced on June 26. She is out on a S$25,000 bail.
