Man jailed 10 months for conspiracy to cheat pawnshops with jewellery made of real and fake gold

Saje Husiadi was jailed for 10 months for conspiring to cheat pawnshops by pawning jewellery comprising fake and real gold. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - A man was jailed on Wednesday (Aug 3) for conspiring to cheat pawnshops by pawning jewellery comprising fake and real gold, and for dishonestly pocketing $17,420 from the shops.

Saje Husiadi, 56, was jailed for 10 months on three counts of engaging in a conspiracy with Mohamad Nur Fadly Rosli, 34, to cheat Ban Joo Pawnshop, Shing Heng (East) and Loong Shing Pawnshop in March this year.

Three other similar charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.

He admitted to a conspiracy to cheat the pawnshops by deceiving the staff into believing that a piece of jewellery to be pawned was made of real gold, which he knew to be false, and induced the staff to accept the jewellery and deliver cash of between $2,100 and $3,770 to him.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Victoria Ting told the court that early this year, Fadly employed Saje to deliver goods for him and paid for his daily expenses and rental in exchange.

Sometime in late 2015 or early this year, Fadly came up with the idea to create jewellery consisting of fake and genuine gold, so that the jewellery would be longer, heavier and worth more when sold or pawned.

He would cut up fake and genuine gold jewellery and join the various links together with pliers. By doing this, it was more likely that the regular methods of verification used by pawnshops would not detect that the jewellery was not made entirely of genuine gold.

Sometime before or during March, Fadly told Saje about what he was doing and showed him the cut-marks in the jewellery. They conspired to cheat pawnshops by pawning the mixed jewellery as items made of real gold.

Fadly handed the items to Saje who pledged them in his own name at various pawnshops.

After each transaction, Saje passed the cash proceeds and the pawn tickets to Fadly, who paid him commissions of $100 to $200 per transaction at the end of each day.

The matter came to light when a victim, Ban Joo Pawnshop, sent the pledged jewellery for verification and testing. The jewellery was found to contain only about 4 per cent of genuine gold content. A police report was made.

No restitution has been made.

Saje, who had a drug possession conviction, could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

Fadly's case is in the pre-trial conference stage.

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