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SINGAPORE: A woman was allegedly tricked into handing over S $ 1 million after scammers claiming to be Chinese authorities tricked her into thinking she was being investigated for a felony.
One of the women who allegedly handled the cash was charged on Friday (October 30) with collecting S $ 1.5 million in criminal proceeds from another woman as part of the official China scam. It’s unclear where the additional S $ 500,000 came from.
Malaysian Lee Pey Ying, 30, was charged under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Profits) Act.
She is accused of collecting S $ 1,537,000 from a person named Zhou Ying between July 6 and July 17 this year.
The charge sheets indicate that he had reasonable grounds to believe that his act facilitated criminal conduct. The prosecutor told the court that the money was not recovered.
Police said in an earlier statement that a woman filed a report in July saying she had received unsolicited phone calls from strangers claiming to be Chinese authorities.
The victim said she was misled into believing she was being investigated for a serious crime and was told by the scammers to give the cash to a woman for five days.
Police arrested Lee and another 19-year-old woman. They are still investigating the younger woman, who has not yet been charged.
Police investigations found that the 19-year-old woman acted on the scammers’ instructions to collect cash from the victim, before handing the money to Lee.
Police warned the public not to collect money from other people on behalf of strangers, especially those who claim to be law enforcement officers.
“Those callers are most likely scammers, and members of the public acting on their instructions may have unknowingly committed a crime by helping to launder criminal money,” police said.
Lee was offered bail of S $ 100,000 and will return to court on November 27. If convicted, she can be jailed for up to 10 years, fined S $ 500,000, or both.
