A 31-year-old woman, Lee Pey Ying (“Lee”), was sentenced in court on 27 September 2021 for her involvement in a series of China Officials Impersonation Scams.
In July 2020, the Commercial Affairs Department received reports from several victims who had fallen prey to a China Officials Impersonation Scam (“COIS”). Phone scammers claiming to be from the “Ministry of Health” (“MOH”) falsely informed elderly victims in Singapore that customs authorities were holding on to their deliveries of medication. The victims had not ordered these deliveries. Later, the calls were diverted to scammers impersonating Chinese police officers and prosecutors, who accused the victims of being involved in financial crimes. Two victims handed cash totaling at least $300,000 to a 20-year-old woman, Zhou Ying (“Zhou”) to facilitate the false investigations.
Investigations revealed that Zhou had been contacted in a similar manner on 29 June 2020. She received an unsolicited phone call from an unknown person impersonating a MOH official. The call was subsequently redirected to persons impersonating Chinese police officers. An individual identifying himself as “Officer Lin” informed Zhou that she was a person of interest in ongoing criminal investigations and instructed her to assist in the “investigations”. Zhou was instructed by Officer Lin to perform the following tasks:
- print and deliver documents with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”) logo to other victims;
- collect “evidence” from the victims; and
- hand over the “evidence” to Lee.
In actual fact, the “evidence” that Zhou collected and passed to Lee was the money that the victims had withdrawn from their bank accounts.
On 8 July 2020, Zhou met a female victim and collected a package containing S$100,000 from her. Zhou passed this package to Lee. On 17 July 2020, Zhou met another female victim and collected a package containing S$200,000 from her. Similarly, Zhou met Lee and passed her the package.
Investigations revealed that in early July 2020, Lee was introduced by her boyfriend, Damien Lee, to one “Martin” (hereafter “Martin”). Martin offered the accused a part-time job that involved collecting items from individuals and delivering them onwards to other individuals. The accused was promised a commission of 1% of the value of the items delivered. The accused agreed to do this and made collections and deliveries according to instructions from either Martin or a person called “Feng” (hereafter “Feng”). Both Martin and Feng were unknown to her.
Lee had suspected that the monies she collected from Zhou were benefits of criminal conduct arising from a “money game”, which to her understanding, was a “pyramid investment scam”. Under such a scheme, individuals would invest money into a company, but the company would close down after a period of time, causing the investors who invested later to fail to receive good returns or lose their principal.
Lee entered into an arrangement in July 2020 to collect at least $300,000 from Zhou, having reasonable grounds to believe that by the arrangement, the control by an unknown person of his benefits of criminal conduct would be facilitated. She was thus charged with assisting another to retain benefits from criminal conduct, under Section 44(1)(a) and punishable under Section 44(5)(a) of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, and sentenced to 23 months and three weeks’ imprisonment.
The Police would also like to warn members of the public not to collect money from other individuals on the behalf of strangers, especially if the sources of funds are not known. Such acts may render one liable for money-laundering offences under the Corruption, Drug-Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act.
If you have information related to such scams or if you are in doubt, please call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. Please dial ‘999’ if you require urgent Police assistance.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Join the ‘Spot the Signs. Stop the Crimes.’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next victim.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
29 September 2021 @ 6:00 PM