SINGAPORE - Six men, aged 22 to 26, were charged on Monday (May 9) over offences that include cheating banks by opening accounts and giving their Singpass details to unknown people for up to $500.
Three of them - Muhammad Ridwan Atan, 23, Louis Chin, 26, and Muhamad Hairul Nizam Mohd Halim, 23 - are said to have disclosed their Singpass usernames and passwords to unknown individuals for commissions of between $200 and $500.
Ridwan was also accused of receiving more than $8,000 worth of stolen cash and jewellery.
The other accused are Lester Law Jin Yuan, 22, Sean Lee Jun Jie, 23, and Daniel Phua Zhi Hao, 24.
According to court documents, the alleged offences occurred between December 2020 and October last year and involved banks including Standard Chartered, UOB and OCBC.
Ridwan was handed six charges for offences that include purportedly granting access to his bank accounts to unknown parties and a contact identified only as “Jimmy” to perform transactions on the banks’ computer systems.
Phua allegedly handed his OCBC bank account details to Law as part of a conspiracy with others, including Yeo Zhi Xiang and Desmond Chan Whye Keat, so that they could access his account fraudulently.
Law and Phua were also accused of deleting their online chat histories to hide information related to illicit banking activities from the police.
Chin and Lee were accused of similar offences of opening bank accounts on behalf of others. It was not mentioned in court how the bank accounts were used.
The accused will return to court at a later date.
Under the Computer Misuse Act, those who fraudulently provide means of access to a computer program can be jailed for up to three years and fined up to $10,000.
The maximum penalty for accessing a computer program without authority is two years’ jail and a fine of $5,000.
The penalty for cheating is a jail term of up to three years or a fine, or both.