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SINGAPORE: A man allegedly involved in parcel delivery phishing scams was charged on Thursday (June 27) for multiple offences including cheating, money laundering and obstructing the course of justice.
Derrick Yeo Wei Kin, 39, was charged with 23 counts of conspiracy to commit cheating, one count of assisting another to retain benefits from criminal conduct, one count of conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice and two forgery-related charges.
On his charge of conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice, court documents state that Yeo allegedly conspired with a woman, Lovelle Cengiya, by getting her to instruct a man to falsely tell the police that he had rented and delivered point-of-sales (POS) terminals to a Malaysian named “Eng”.
Cengiya, 29, was charged on June 14 for her alleged role in the case.
She faces a total of 27 charges, including multiple counts of conspiracy to commit cheating.
The police said that between November 2023 and January 2024, multiple reports were lodged by victims who discovered fraudulent transactions on their bank cards, with losses amounting to over S$25,900.
Some of these victims received either text messages or e-mails requiring additional payment to facilitate the delivery of their online purchases.
The police said these text messages or e-mails appeared to be sent by Singapore Post (SingPost) to get victims to pay a sum using their debit or credit cards to arrange for further attempts to deliver the items.
Victims were subsequently led to input their bank card details on a spoofed SingPost website via a phishing link.
Investigations revealed that Yeo had allegedly entered into an arrangement with Cengiya, to procure POS terminals for a transnational criminal syndicate.
To evade detection, Cengiya allegedly enlisted the services of a business consultancy company to source for the POS terminals to rent.
The POS terminals were then handed over to the syndicate, which allowed fraudulent card transactions to be made on these POS terminals.
These fraudulent transactions were eventually billed to the victims’ accounts, and at least two Singapore bank accounts were used to launder the proceeds from these transactions, said the police.
Those convicted of cheating can be jailed for up to 10 years and is liable to a fine.
If found guilty of retaining benefits from criminal conduct, an offender can be jailed up to 10 years, fined up to $500,000, or both. - The Straits Times/ANN
