SINGAPORE – Five Malaysian men who were recruited by a transnational syndicate behind a “fake friend scam call” ruse targeted at least 70 Singapore-based victims, causing more than $164,000 in losses.
The offences involved scammers contacting victims through text messages or phone calls, pretending to be someone they know before asking for financial assistance.
The five men are: Kek Yuan Chun, 20; Chua Zi Huang, 24; Heng Guo Hao, 26; Loh Chuan Sheng, 36 and Yee Kong Yao, 37.
They pleaded guilty to cheating charges on March 14.
The people they targeted included vulnerable victims aged between 68 and 76 years old.
The prosecution said that all five men had moved into condominium units at the Marina Residence JB in Johor Baru and operated from a scam centre at the property.
Each man was paid RM3,000 (S$900) a month for the first three months before the amount was increased to either RM5,000 or RM5,500 later.
Most of the men were also given “commissions” of 10 per cent based on the total amounts they cheated from their victims.
They reported to one “Tong Hua Shun” and as part of their employment, they were also provided with food and lodging.
Court documents stated that the five men worked from 10am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday.
Deputy public prosecutors Daphne Lim and Teng Yin Hang stated in court documents that Tong would disseminate name lists to two different Telegram groups which the syndicate maintained.
Each list contained around 200 names of potential victims and their Singapore-registered numbers.
The men, who were part of the Telegram groups, would then contact all the potential victims before they were given a fresh list of names.
The men were also given scripts which they used as reference when making the scam calls.
As part of the ruse, each man would ask a potential victim if his voice sounded familiar, to which the latter would usually reply by asking if he was a certain friend.
The DPPs said: “The accused persons would then assume the identity of that friend, continue exchanging messages with the callee on WhatsApp over the next few days.
“Thereafter, the callee would be cheated into transferring monies to bank accounts controlled by the transnational syndicate under various false pretexts.”
The men would send updates to their Telegram groups so that Tong and/or his assistant could provide either information linked to bank accounts or PayNow numbers for the victims to make their transfers.
After that, the scammers would send screenshots of the transfers to their Telegram groups.
At the end of each day, they would report on their daily work output, such as the number of calls made, in their respective Telegram groups.
Tong and/or his assistant would then send to the group chats a “daily scam report” tabulating the “successful scams” of the day.
The DPPs added: “The accused persons would also colour-code the name list based on their encounters with the callees.
“They were instructed to highlight rows in grey to indicate that the call was not picked up, black to indicate that the number was no longer in use, yellow to indicate that the call was answered by someone other than the intended callee and purple/blue to indicate that the call was answered by a potential victim.”
Each man started working for the syndicate between May and August 2023. Some of them worked together to target the same victims.
Court documents stated that Chua had targeted the most number of victims. These 54 people transferred more than $117,000 in total.
Loh duped 53 victims into transferring $116,560 while Kek cheated 52 people into handing over $116,060.
Together, Yee and Heng cheated 16 people of more than $47,000.
The Singapore Police Force and the Royal Malaysian Police had worked together to share information on such scam cases.
On Jan 16, 2024, the Malaysian authorities raided condominium units at Marina Residence JB and arrested the five men.
They were taken to Singapore a week later and were charged in court on Jan 24, 2024. All five men will be sentenced in April.
Scam victims in Singapore lost $1.1 billion in 2024, marking a record high amount of losses suffered in a single year.
In total, victims in Singapore have lost more than $3.4 billion to scams since 2019.
The surge in reports of victims voluntarily handing their money to scammers prompted the Protection from Scams Bill, which was passed in Parliament in January 2025.
The law gives the police powers to restrict individuals from transferring money out of their bank accounts, if there is reason to believe that they are likely to make transfers to scammers.
Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times’ court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts.
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