Three Chinese nationals – 53-year old, Li Qiangqing, 48-year old Zhu Zhaozong and 50-year old Wei Shuihong – had flown from China to Singapore for the purpose of carrying cheating scams and they succeeded in cheating cheat a 60-year old woman of $10,000.
Li and Zhu were sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment for the cheating offence and Wei was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for receiving the money from the others.
They carried packets of electronic components and they wanted to use these to cheat elderly people into buying them by lying that the parts were valuable.
To carry out the scam, Wei had first approached the victim at a market and asked her directions and he pretended to drop the electrical components during their conversation.
As planned, Zhu appeared and pretended to ask about the component and Wei lied by saying that they were valuable computer parts which he was willing to sell for $50 per piece.
Subsequently, Li joined in the conversation and offered to buy the parts from Zhu for $80 per piece.
At this point, Zhu said that he would like to purchase 800 pieces of the electrical components from Wei and selling them to Li to make a profit, but Zhu claimed that he did not have enough cash and offered to share his profit with the victim if she would help provide the cash.
After the victim believed Zhu and gave him $10,000 to purchase the goods, she waited for Zhu to return with the goods.
However, Zhu did not turn up and he victim subsequently realised that she had been cheated.
The three Chinese nationals were arrested two days later at the Fragrance Hotel Rose in Balestier Road and the victim’s money was seized from them.
The Court accepted the Prosecution’s argument that a serious sentence should be imposed in order to deter other offenders from potentially coming to Singapore to commit such crimes against other similarly vulnerable victims.
The Court also noted that the offence was committed in a group and a high level of planning was done.
More information on the case may be found here.