HDB/Flat Rental Scam–Police are appealing for information to assist with investigations into a series of flat rental scams

Police are looking for the man shown in the picture to assist with investigations into a series of flat rental scams reported at Blk 1 Lor Lew Lian #06-24.

From 31 Mar 2011 , at least 13 cases of flat rental scams have been reported at Blk 1 Lor Lew Lian #06-24. In all the cases, victims had responded to flat rental advertisements placed in the Chinese newspapers between 4 and 29 Mar 2011 . The suspect would arrange with victims to view the unit, and would collect money ($500 - $4800) from them as deposit for the rental of the unit. The victims were told to move into the unit between 3 and 7 Apr 2011. After collecting the money, the suspect would then become evasive and remain uncontactable.

Police believe that this man in the picture may be able to assist in investigations. His name is Chua Thiam Lye and the description of the man is as follows:

a)	Gender	:	Male Chinese in his 40s
b)	Height	:	About 1.7m tall
c)	Hair	:	Short and black
d)	Build	:	Plump
e)	Other	:	A mole below his lips

Anyone with information on this man is requested to call the Police Hotline at 1800-2550000. All information will be kept strictly confidential.

Crime Prevention Tips – Flat Rental Scam
a)	Seek service from an established estate agent;
b)	Conduct a check against the agent and the company before signing any agreement;
c)	Observe due diligence and carry out verifications of any documents relating to the property;
d)	Visit the flat you wish to rent and ensure that the person you are dealing with is the rightful flat owner. Request documentary proof of flat ownership that bears the flat owner’s name.
e)	Request the flat owner to show you a copy of the approval letter from HDB if you are renting the whole flat
f)	Be careful if asked for an advance payment and do not pay large sums in cash. As proof of payment, you should pay the rental deposit and rents by cheque; and
g)	Do a check with the company to ensure that the estate agent is indeed with the company. If in doubt, request to sign the documents and hand over the deposit at the office.

Singapore Police advises public on variations of Phone Scams

Scammers are coming up with new and innovative phone scams to convince victims to part with their money. There are many variations to phone scams. The most common ones are the Lottery Scam, Kidnap Scam and Impersonation Scam.

Lottery Scams!
Tricksters may call from overseas, email or SMS the recipients, informing them that they have won prize money in a foreign lottery. The tricksters would request for an advance payment in order to process the claims for prizes.

Kidnap Scams!
Tricksters would claim that the recipient's loved one had been kidnapped and demand that a ransom be transferred to specific bank account. These fake threats are usually accompanied by sounds of cries for help in the background.

Impersonation Scams!
Tricksters would impersonate law enforcement officials, advising victims to remit or transfer money to designated bank accounts in order to exonerate themselves from alleged crimes. These common allegations include failure to appear in court in relation to one's involvement in money laundering and unlicensed money lending cases.

1. The tricksters will impersonate foreign government officials such as the Interpol, Taiwan Police, China Police, etc.
2. The tricksters will ask the victims for their personal information and bank account details for verification purposes. In some occasions, they were able to recite the victim's personal information or bank account number.
3. The tricksters will send pre-recorded voice messages to the victims. The victims will need to press a number before their calls are answered by an operator. To lend credibility to their scams, the number that appeared on the recipient's phone reflects those belonging to local authorities such as:
    
   a. Supreme Court Quality Service Manager/ Enquiry Hotline: 63381034,
   b. CID Hotline: 64350000, or
   c. Police Emergency Hotline: 999
    
   This is commonly known as "Caller ID Spoofing", where advances in technology enable callers to lie about their identity through false numbers.

CRIME PREVENTION MEASURES

Lottery Scam

• Ignore notifications of a win in a lottery or lucky draw when you had not purchased any lottery ticket or participated in any lucky draw.
• Do not make any advance payment to claim any prize money. Winning a lucky draw or lottery does not require you to make any advance payment.
• Do not entertain such SMSes and calls.
• Be wary of get-rich-quick offers. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it is probably a scam.

Kidnap Scam

• If the public receive kidnap scam calls, they should remain calm and try to contact their next-of-kin immediately. Should repeated attempts at contacting their loved-ones fail, they should then contact the police.
• In addition, the public could pose questions to the kidnapper to verify the identity of the purportedly kidnapped victim, for instance, the number of family members staying together or whether there are pets in the house, to help them establish if the call is indeed genuine.

Impersonation Scam

• Ignore any notification calls from unknown persons who claim to be government officials. All notices to attend court hearing would be notified by post or accompanied by an official letter.
• Police or court officials would not ask anyone who is in connection with a criminal case to make any transfer of funds to unknown bank accounts.
• Do not give your personal details such as NRIC and bank account numbers to anyone over telephone or e-mail.

Those who receive such calls may wish to pass on such information to the Police at a Neighbourhood Police Centre.

Filipina Domestic Workers And Singaporean Employers Arrested For Operating Unlicensed Moneylending Business

Acting on information received, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department conducted an operation on 11 January 2011 and busted two separate groups believed to be involved in issuing unlicensed loans to foreign domestic workers. A total of five persons aged between 28 and 69 years old were arrested in the operation.

The first group involved three persons, namely a 69-year-old male Singaporean and two Filipina domestic workers aged 28 and 36 years respectively. This group is suspected to have issued loans to more than 200 other Filipina domestic workers since June 2010.

The second group involved a 47-year-old female Singaporean and a 29-year old Filipina domestic worker. They are believed to have issued loans to about 40 domestic workers since January 2009.

The three Filipina suspects and the female Singaporean will be charged in Court on 13 January 2011 for offences under the Moneylenders Act. Investigations against the remaining suspect are still ongoing.

Under the Moneylenders Act, persons found guilty of operating or assisting in the operating of a loansharking business may be fined not less than $30,000 and up to $300,000 with mandatory imprisonment of up to four years and shall be liable for caning of up to six strokes.

Source: PUBLIC AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE

Two Filipino women jailed for conspiracy to cheat Standard Chartered Bank.

Two Filipino women were jailed in Singapore for being part of a conspiracy to cheat Standard Chartered Bank.

One of them, Charon Legaspi Dimpas, was sentenced to 45 months behind bars for cheating the bank of nearly $760,000.

The 26-year-old former direct sales agent from telemarketing company, Touch & Tech, committed the offence between June and November 2009.

She pleaded guilty on Monday to eight charges while 88 other similar ones were taken into consideration.

The other woman, 39-year-old Maria Theresa Arenas Garcia, was sentenced to six months' jail for being part of the ruse.

Touch & Tech had been engaged by the bank to make calls to prospective applicants to market the unsecured credit facilities it offered.

Dimpas became part of a syndicate that illegally helped foreigners obtain the loans from the bank even though they were not eligible.

She forged her applicants' payslips by inflating their monthly incomes above the stipulated $60,000.

The court heard that their annual income has to be at least that amount to be eligible for the bank's credit facilities.

And because foreigners holding employment passes must have a minimum of one-year validity remaining on their working papers, Dimpas also forged letters of extension for employment to assist her applicants.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Magdalene Huang told the court that Dimpas earned a commission of more than $8,000 from her 96 successful applications using the forged documents.

Ms Huang added that Dimpas was allegedly encouraged to do so by her former boss, Singaporean Abdul Karim Baba, who too was entitled to commissions and bonuses from the submissions to the bank.

It's believed Abdul Karim, 60, also helped check the forged documents and allegedly suggested to his subordinates, who were part of the scam, to darken the font and include some smudges to the forged documents to make them appear authentic.

Most of Dimpas' applicants were believed to be referrals provided by a 28-year-old Filipino technician, Mark Robert Fajilan Landicho. The latter is believed to have attracted applicants by placing an advertisement on a Filipino community online portal.

A post on pinoysg allegedly put up by him stated that he could help them process their applications for loans and credit cards from Standard Chartered Bank even if they did not earn the stipulated income.

It's believed he received $75 for each successful application.

Both Landicho and Abdul Karim have already been charged for allegedly taking part in the scam.

Garcia, one of the many applicants, submitted forged payslips and a bogus letter of extension for employment. In doing so, the administrative operation executive deceived the bank into giving her a loan of $10,500.

For the offences, the women could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined on each charge.

Link from the subordinate court hearing their case.

48 year-old Singaporean arrested for serial rental scam

Singapore Police arrested a 48 year-old Singaporean man who is believed to responsible for at least 3 cases of rental scams where victims were cheated of about $9,000/- in total.

A 43 year-old PRC national reported to the Police that he had been cheated of a sum of $2,800/- by a male suspect who agreed to rent him his flat but disappeared after collecting the money. Upon receipt of the report, officers from Clementi Police Division conducted extensive enquiries and investigations and managed to ascertain the identity of the suspect. This led to the arrest of the suspect 5 days later on 28 Oct 2010 when he turned up at the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority ( ICA ) to collect his passport.

Preliminary investigations revealed that since 15 Sep 2010, the suspect had advertised his flat for rent on the Internet. Unsuspecting victims who were mainly foreigners responded to the advertisement and paid the suspect advance rental payments and deposits. The suspect would then become uncontactable after receiving the money.

The suspect will be charged in Court for the offence of Cheating. The offence carries punishment of imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall be liable to fine.

source: Singapore Police

Beware: Singapore Rental scam racket busted

POLICE have crippled a rental scam syndicate and arrested three men and a woman believed to be connected to more than 20 cases of cheating over the rental of flats.

This follow reports to police by people who were unable to move into residential flats after paying deposits, rental fees and agent commissions between June last year and July this year.

The amounts, ranging from $900 to $1,500, were paid to the supposed home owners and property agent who advertised for the rental of two flats located at Block 115 Jalan Bukit Merah and Block 7 North Bridge Road. The home owners and the property agent could not be reached after the payments were made.

Following investigations by Central Police Division, the owner of the Jalan Bukit Merah unit was arrested in connection to the case. He was found to be working with a bogus property agent to commit cheating in a bid to obtain quick cash. Police were able to establish that money from both units was paid into a common bank account.

In a police operation lasting 20-hours on Friday, police officers arrested a 48-year-old woman at about 12am. She had a bundle of blank tenancy agreements. About 14 hours later, officers nabbed a 56-year-old man who had posed as the owner of the North Bridge Road unit.

On Friday at about 8.15pm, police officers arrested the last remaining suspect, a 45-year-old bogus property agent known to his victims as 'Raymond'. He was later found to be wanted by the police for other separate offences of robbery and serious hurt.

source: StraitsTimes

Scam Alert: Police Warns Public About Increasing Use of Counterfeit S$50

This news is a little bit dated but in case you still haven’t heard yet. There’s nothing to lose for being informed……

Police has recently reports of unknown person using counterfeit money as mode of payment.  To date more than 30 cases were reported and as we approach the period of festive sales, we would like to reiterate the importance for being vigilant.
Modus Operandi

Please take note that the culprit will normally use a fake currency note of S$50/- (commonly bearing the serial number: 2EY322725) at pubs, restaurants, petrol kiosks, convenient stores and 4D outlets for purchases.
The scam can also take in other forms ie culprit may also seek assistance in changing looses notes using counterfeit money, on the pretext of urgent need.

What to look out for:
1.  Counterfeit Notes using serial number:2EY3222725;
2.  Poor quality paper that has a waxy surface without the following intaglio:
      a.  No raised printing:
      b.  No shimmering effect on the kinegrams;
      c.  No Security Thread; and
3.  Although the counterfeit note simulated the outline of the watermark, but it does not have three-dimensional portrait of the late President Yusof Bin Ishak when examined under light.

What can you do when you receive such notes?
1.  When presented with the counterfeit note, do not return the suspected note to the suspect;
2.  Delay and keep the suspect at sight and if possible contact the police immediately;
3.  Take note of the description of the culprit, e.g. gender, age, height, built, attire, scars/tattoos, accent of language or any distinct features;
4.  Note the suspect(s)' mode of escape and take down the vehicle registration number if he/they escaped in a vehicle;
5.  Minimize the handling of the note and carefully place it in an envelope/polymer bag and hand it to the Police when they arrive.
If you have any information relation to the above cases, please to not hesitate to contact Police hotline at 1800-255 0000 or dial 999 if urgent police assistance is required.