Jail for man who let his bank account be used to receive scam money

SINGAPORE – She was told by a man she had met on Instagram that he had bought her jewellery for her birthday.

To receive the jewellery and a cash gift, she was asked to pay $10,000 in Customs-related charges. She transferred the money to a UOB account in August 2021.

But two days later, the woman made a police report saying she had been cheated.

The police also received other reports linking the same UOB account to online scam activities.

On Wednesday, the owner of the bank account, Danny Lim Kok Tiong, 55, was sentenced to 15 weeks’ jail after he pleaded guilty to three charges, including one that involved cheating the manager of a remittance agency by submitting a false reason for remitting money to a Malaysian bank account.

Lim’s other two charges were for committing forgery on forms dated 2020, when he was a financial consultant.

The cheating case was uncovered through investigations that followed the police reports, but the identity of the man whom the victim had befriended on Instagram is unknown.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Bryan Wong said a man named Chung had approached one of Lim’s friends between May and June 2021 with a proposition to receive money in his bank account and to remit the money to Malaysian bank accounts in exchange for a service fee.

The friend, who was receiving financial aid, was afraid of losing the aid if a large amount of money was found to have been transferred into his bank account, and he told Lim about the offer.

Lim, who was interested in the offer, was introduced to Chung and agreed to the arrangement.

On June 30, 2021, Lim received $18,500 in his bank account and received $1,500 from Chung in return. Lim then transferred $500 to his friend.

In August 2021, Chung told Lim that $10,000 would be deposited into his bank account, and instructed Lim to transfer $9,000 to the holder of an AmBank account in Puchong, Malaysia, and keep the remaining $1,000 as a fee for his involvement.

Chung told Lim to avoid direct online fund transfers and to instead use a remittance agency which offered the Pay2Home international money transfer service.

After receiving the $10,000, Lim visited a remittance agency at Parkway Parade on Aug 10, 2021, to remit $9,000 to the AmBank account.

He presented the agency’s manager with an invoice to support the remittance request that falsely claimed the money was payment for marketing-related services provided to him by a company called Nur Syazwani.

DPP Wong asked the court to jail Lim for between three and six months, saying that he facilitated money mule activity by undermining the due diligence steps of the remittance agency.

Lim’s lawyer, Mr S.S. Dhillon, asked for 10 weeks’ jail for his client, saying that he had acted foolishly by carrying out Chung’s instructions.

For cheating, Lim could have been jailed for three years, fined, or both. In addition, he could have been jailed for four years, fined, or both for each count of forgery.

Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.