SINGAPORE: After being promised S$500 (RM1,554), a 22-year-old man opened a bank account for a stranger who then used it to receive money from people he scammed.
In about five days, more than S$35,500 (RM110,349) was swindled from eight people in an e-commerce scam.
On Wednesday (Jan 26), Muhammad Hafizzudin Hasanudin was sentenced to three months’ jail for cheating. One other charge under the Computer Misuse Act was taken into account for his sentencing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Esther Wong said: “This case represents the first prosecution for an offender who relinquished his bank account to online scammers, in return for money, with utter disregard as to how the bank account would be used by the scammers.”
Urging the court to impose a three to four month jail term, DPP Wong highlighted the prevalence of scams in Singapore, mentioning that in the first half of 2021, 19,444 scam-related cases were reported, with ecommerce scams making up the second most common type of scam and resulting in at least S$2.4mil (RM7.46mil) lost.
The court agreed that general deterrence applied to offences of this nature.
The court heard that in early August last year, Muhammad Hafizzudin received text messages from a man only identified as “Wilson”.
Wilson promised to give him S$500 (RM1,554) to open a bank account and hand over the ATM card, personal identification number (PIN), and Internet Banking login credentials.
After meeting Wilson on Aug 7, 2021, Muhammad Hafizzudin agreed to the arrangement and went to the OCBC Tampines Branch, at 1 Tampines Central 5, to open an OCBC account.
He agreed to the bank’s terms that he would own and have effective control of the account, that the account would be for his own use, and that he would make the application to OCBC to allow another person to use the account if he wished to.
OCBC granted the application and opened the account in his name without conducting due diligence on the ultimate beneficial owner, which the bank would have done if it had not been deceived, said DPP Wong, who added that this act was likely to cause harm to OCBC’s reputation.
After the account was opened, Muhammad Hafizzudin placed the ATM card, PIN, and a piece of paper with the account’s Internet Banking login credentials in a riser cabinet at the void deck of his home in Yishun.
He knew that Wilson would arrange for the items to be collected.
Muhammad Hafizzudin also gave Wilson the one-time-passwords for the account.
He did not receive the S$500 (RM1,554) he was promised.
From Aug 8 to 11, 2021, the account was used by persons unknown to receive and transfer funds.
The scam involved getting victims to make false purchases on ecommerce websites which would not be delivered to them in exchange for their money back with 10% commission.
The victims got their money at first and were then told to make larger transfers; but they did not get money again.
A total of S$35,585 (RM110,615) from eight people was transferred into the account and not returned. They filed police reports on Aug 11 and 12.
Muhammad Hafizzudin was not involved in these fund transfers.
He began serving his sentence on Wednesday. – The Straits Times (Singapore)/Asia News Network
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