Chatroom cheat jailed 18 months
By Khushwant Singh
WHAT'S behind a name like 'Cindy'?
Three people, actually, and they went on to sucker some 40 victims
of more than $15,000 on the Internet.
One of the scammers' stories, in Cindy's 'voice': My landlord is
kicking me out, unless I get money for the rent urgently!
Police later arrested two jobless men and a woman.
One of them, Loke Chern Meng, 28, who pleaded guilty last week, was
jailed 18 months for cheating on Wednesday. He was also also jailed
two weeks and fined $10,000 for managing an illegal gaming
house.
The court had heard that Loke offered his childhood friend, Shawn
Goh Eng Hwee, also 28, the use of his POSBank account to receive
the money sent by the victims.
As 'Cindy', Goh would ask men he chatted with on the MSN Messenger
chatroom for help pay for rent, settle a brother's debts or pay for
'her' mother's funeral.
On occasions when potential victims called up, Goh would get his
girlfriend, Miyazaki Sachi, 20, to be 'Cindy'.
From April 2005 to May this year, the victims transferred sums
ranging from $50 to $1,000 to Loke's bank account. He would
withdraw the money and give two-thirds to Goh.
Even after Loke discovered that police were monitoring his bank
account, he continued with the scam by getting his girlfriend Miss
Tan Li Ting, 19, to allow him to use her POSBank account.
He did not tell her it was for an illegal purpose.
Police arrested him on May 15 for operating a cyber cafe in
Clementi where he issued credits in exchange for cash to patrons to
gamble on games like jackpot and blackjack on computers.
Investigations uncovered his role in the scam and led to the
arrests of Goh and Sachi, a free-lance marketer.
Pleading for leniency, his lawyer Kertar Singh said that Loke
committed the offence in desperation as he and his family were
hounded by loansharks.
He had borrowed money from them to make good his heavy losses in
football betting, said Mr Singh, who produced police reports by
Loke's family about harassment by loansharks.
Loke, looking pale and sickly in court, was also suffering from a
chest infection that doctors suspect could be tuberculosis, Mr
Singh added.
Goh and Sachi have not been dealt with.
The maximum penalty for cheating is seven years' jail and a
fine.
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