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SINGAPORE: A 25-year-old man took advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to deceive several victims with cash in exchange for masks and other items.
He also tricked a friend from church into lending him S $ 11,000 in total for his daily needs, believing he would pay the money back. In total, the sum involved in all the cheating charges amounted to more than S $ 31,000.
Marc Tay Yi Jie, 25, was sentenced Thursday (September 24) to 30 months in jail on nine counts of cheating, and 18 other counts were taken into consideration.
The court heard that Tay, who is unemployed, was disowned by his parents in 2017 after being found guilty and sentenced to prison for various crimes. In 2018, he relapsed and returned to jail.
When he was released from jail in April 2018, Tay found himself homeless and without financial support. She stayed in a rehab center for a few months before enlisting the support of a friend from church, who transferred money to her for Tay’s daily accommodation, meals and transportation.
Along with money he borrowed from other friends, Tay stayed in inns, dormitories, and backpacker hostels.
Since March of this year, during the COVID-19 outbreak, Tay began running e-commerce scams to fund his needs. She listed items for sale on Carousell and Facebook Marketplace, such as hand sanitizers, thermometers, masks, and NTUC vouchers.
However, it did not have the items and was accepting deposits or full payments from customers without delivering the items.
A victim transferred a deposit of S $ 400 to him for 300 bottles of hand sanitizer, 66 boxes of surgical masks and 19 thermometers.
Tay also cheated on his friend from church, a 61-year-old man. He had approached the man, Ho, for help in late 2018 after his release from prison, and lied to him, saying he had jobs at large companies but was denied his wages.
Tay said he could use his wages to help pay off Mr. Ho’s loans and asked Mr. Ho to loan him money first.
Believing that Tay was in paid employment and could repay the loans, Ho loaned at least S $ 11,000 to Tay between December 2018 and August 2019, transferring the sums daily to Tay.
To date, Tay has only returned around S $ 1,000 to Mr. Ho.
Tay also tricked two men into renting camera equipment for a total value of around S $ 17,000 from him, before selling most of it for his own profit.
The prosecutor asked for at least 33 months in jail and said that most of the crimes sought to capitalize on public fears about the COVID-19 situation.
There was an increase in e-commerce scams by 116.2 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, the prosecutor said.
COVID-19-related items, such as surgical masks, were among the top five most commonly scammed items during this period.
Tay also has previous convictions in 2017 and 2018, including burglary, robbery and attempted break-in.
For each count of cheating, Tay could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
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