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SINGAPORE: Seeing that his friend was having trouble with his demanding job as a truck driver while undergoing chemotherapy, a man suggested that he work as a private car driver.
When he found out that his friend was illiterate, he hired a third man to pose as his friend and take away the theory papers in English.
Ng Chai, 62, was sentenced to four weeks in jail on Thursday (December 17) after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to mislead a per-person driving examiner.
The court heard that Ng knew truck driver Tan Chai Meng, 52, through a temple association on Geylang Road. At some point in the past year, Ng learned that Tan had been working as a truck driver but could not bear the long hours he was receiving chemotherapy for stomach cancer.
Ng asked Tan to consider working as a private rental car driver with Grab or Gojek, but Tan said he couldn’t speak or write English to pass the required theory exams.
Ng said she would take the test on Tan’s behalf and signed up for the classes and the test space. However, he realized that he couldn’t take the test, as the Ground Transportation Authority had forbidden him to do so after he was caught trying to take it for someone else.
To help Tan, Ng asked a third man, Ho Yow Peng, 59, to help him take Tan’s test.
On the morning of January 2 of this year, Ng collected Tan’s identification documents and passed them to Ho to facilitate spoofing for evidence.
Ho went down to the test center at the CityCab building at 600 Sin Ming Avenue and pretended to be Tan. He presented Tan’s NRIC and driver’s license and started taking the first test, but the supervisor noticed that Ho looked different from the photos on Tan’s identification papers.
He asked a colleague to take a look before calling Tan three times. However, Ho did not respond until the third time and did not make any eye contact, but continued to look at the tablet he was taking the test with.
The vigilante interrogated Ho, but managed to convince her that he was Tan and continued taking the test.
The guard later asked Ho to provide more documents with photo identification, but said he did not have any and would do so when he returned later for the second test.
However, when he returned, he showed only Tan’s ATM card, which did not have a photo. The supervisor asked Ho for Tan’s address and called Ho’s number. Since Tan had Ho’s phone with him, it rang accordingly.
Unconvinced, the supervisor asked Ho why he looked different from the photo in Tan’s NRIC. Ho replied that he had been involved in a serious accident, which left him in the hospital for two months and caused him to lose a lot of weight. .
Because Ho failed the second test, the supervisor asked him to bring other photo identification documents to verify when he returned for a new test.
The ruse was discovered the next day, when Tan went to the building to request a hard copy of the test result and was confronted by the supervisor’s colleague.
A police report was made on the impersonation.
The prosecutor asked for at least two months in jail, saying Ng was the mastermind of the conspiracy and was active in the process, recruiting Ho and acting as a liaison.
For being an accessory to the impersonation scam, Ng could have been jailed for up to five years, fined, or both.
