3 men charged over alleged involvement in impersonation scam, gold worth $800k collected from victims

SINGAPORE – Three men have been hauled to court over their suspected involvement in laundering proceeds from a government official impersonation scam, including 27 gold bars each weighing about 100g.

On June 6, Ryan Ng Zee Hao, 24, Young Raven, 28, and Randolph Koh Yong Lee, 30, were charged with assisting another person to retain the benefits from criminal conduct.

Between May 29 and June 3, Ng and Koh allegedly received several items from Young: gold pieces worth around $500,000; 27 gold bars weighing about 100g each and worth about $300,000 in total; and about $21,000 in cash.

These items were collected from scam victims.

One of the victims was a 68-year-old man who received a call from someone claiming to be from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

He was led to believe that he had been implicated in an offence, and had to surrender the gold bars for investigations.

Young allegedly collected the gold bars from the victim on behalf of the scammers, with the help of Ng and a 29-year-old woman, the police said in a statement.

After the victim made a police report on June 3, Young, Ng and the woman were arrested the following day.

Further investigations by the police led them to arrest Koh and another man, aged 29, at Woodlands Checkpoint as they were about to leave Singapore.

The police also seized $22,000 in cash and six mobile phones.

Investigations of the 29-year-old woman and the 29-year-old man are ongoing.

The offence of assisting another person to retain the benefits from criminal conduct carries a jail term of up to 10 years, a fine not exceeding $500,000, or both.