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SINGAPORE – Unable to pay off his debts with an unlicensed lender, a deputy manager at telecommunications company Singtel decided to help the loan shark by sharing details of six Singtel clients.
A district court heard that 40-year-old Filipino Pleo Sherwin Cubos recovered the information from the loan shark, who is known only as “Alan,” despite knowing he is not supposed to.
On Wednesday (December 30), Cubos, who no longer works for Singtel, pleaded guilty to one count of aiding a loan shark and one count of unrelated criminal breach of trust.
He was sentenced to three months and three weeks in jail and fined $ 30,000; If he couldn’t afford it, he would spend six more weeks behind bars.
Cubos was earning a base salary of around $ 5,000 a month at his job and needed cash sometime in late January. Responded to a loan service Facebook ad to borrow $ 500.
He was then told to pay $ 350 as interest per week until he could repay the principal amount of $ 500.
Cubos began taking out more loans because he was unable to pay off his debt, the court heard.
Assistant District Attorney Emily Koh said: “In the short span of two weeks, the defendants’ debts had skyrocketed to around $ 3,000 at five different unlicensed lenders.
“As the defendant was unable to pay his debts, he began to be harassed by unlicensed moneylenders, which included images of a burning house and an unknown individual standing outside his apartment.”
The loan shark named Alan then sent Cubos a list of identity card numbers, as well as phone numbers, as he knew the Filipino worked for Singtel.
Alan told Cubos that he would stop harassing him if Cubos agreed to access Singtel’s internal data system, known as CRM, to filter the numbers and retrieve details such as customer addresses.
Cubos did as he was told and examined the records of 27 clients in CRM between February 20 and April 25, although he was not authorized to do so. He then sent the details of six clients to Alan.
In March and April, Cubos also pawned three Singtel iPads worth nearly $ 2,000 in total to get at least $ 250 in return.
Then he used the money for his personal expenses.
His supervisor learned of Cubos’ offenses and alerted police on May 2.
For helping an unlicensed lender, a criminal can be jailed for up to four years and fined up to $ 300,000.
The offender can also be ordered to receive up to six strokes of the baton.
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