A former investigation assistant with the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) was jailed for 22 months yesterday for a slew of offences, including committing money mule crimes while on police bail for credit card fraud.
Christopher Gan Boon Khong, 26, who faced 138 charges, admitted to 32 - theft, cheating, causing hurt, as well as acquiring and converting property representing benefits from criminal conduct.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Chew Xin Ying said Gan had committed credit card offences on June 29, 2014, and re-offended three days later. He was at Club V6 in Sultan Plaza at about 12.30am on July 2 when he saw a staff member place a black guest check folder on a counter with Ms Vedula Vijay Kumar's DBS Black Visa Platinum card. When the cashier was not looking, Gan stole the card.
He headed to a pub in Tanglin Shopping Centre where he used the card to pay for two bottles of cognac worth $358, and four bottles of cognac worth $776 from another pub in the same building.
Before he returned to Club V6, he also bought a shirt at Mustafa Centre using the stolen card.
Questioned by the cashier at Club V6, he denied stealing customers' credit cards. He said he was a police officer and showed his CPIB warrant card.
Customer relationship manager Daniel Chan Kian Hong later took Gan to the security room, where he showed Gan CCTV footage of him removing the DBS Black card from the guest check folder.
Gan started behaving aggressively and scuffled with Mr Chan to try and get away. But he slipped, fell and was arrested.
The court heard that in another theft and cheating case - on June 29 that year, also at Club V6 - Gan used Ms Wendy Lim Geok Lian's HSBC Visa credit card to pay for garlands after a staff member mistakenly presented it him.
He has made full restitution of $2,699 to the two victims.
Between August and December last year, police received numerous reports from victims who said they had been conned into either transferring money to a local POSB account, or paying Alipay or iTunes credits for purported sexual services.
Between Aug 26 and Sept 9 last year, Gan acquired a total of $34,900 from more than 50 incoming transactions. He had converted $34,158 to credits through buying 63 Alipay Purchase Cards. He kept the remaining $742 for himself as commission. His lawyer Nirmal Singh said Gan was himself a victim of a massage-for-credits scam.
District Judge Ng Peng Hong backdated Gan's sentence to March 24 this year.
