5 men support work for the scam union, causing at least 70 victims to lose more than $ 164K

Singapore: five Malaysian men who were recruited by a Transnational union behind an “call fake friend scam call” trick addressed In LeasT 70 victims based in Singapore, causing more than $ 164,000 in losses.

He The crimes involved to the scammers contact the victims through text messages or telephone 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 declared themselves guilty of trap charges March 14.

The people who attacked included vulnerable victims ageD between 68 and 76 years.

The Prosecutor’s Office said that the five men had moved to condominium units at the Marina Residence JB in Johor Baru and operated from a scam center on the property.

Each man was paid RM3,000 (S $ 900) per month during the first three months before the amount increased to RM5,000 or RM5,500 later.

Most men also received “commissions” 10 percent Based on the total amounts that cheated their victims.

They informed a “Tong Hua Shun” and, as part of their job, they were also provided with food and accommodation.

The judicial documents declared that the five men worked from 10 am to 6 pm, from Monday to Saturday.

The attached prosecutors Daphne Lim and Teng Yin Hang declared in the judicial documents that Tong would disseminate the names of names to two different telegram groups that the union maintained.

Each list contained around 200 names of possible victims and their numbers registered in Singapore.

The men, who were part of the telegram groups, would contact all potential victims before they were given a new list of names.

The men also received scripts that they used as a reference when making scam calls.

As part of the trick, each man would ask a potential victim if his voice seemed familiar, to which the latter would generally answer asking if he was a true friend.

The DPPS said: “The accused people would assume the identity of that friend, will continue to exchange messages with the street about whatTOPp in the next few days.

“From then on, the street would be deceived to transfer money to bank accounts controlled by the transnational union with several false pretexts. “

Men would send updates to their telegram groups so that Tong and/or their assistant could provide information related to bank accounts or payment numbers so that the victims make their transfers.

After that, the scammers would send screenshots of transfers to their telegram groups.

At the end of each day, they would inform about their daily work production, such as the number of calls made, in their respective telegram groups.

Tong and/or his assistant would send to the Chats group a “daily scam report” that tabulates the “successful scams” of the day.

The DPPS added: “The accused people would also encode the list of names based on their meetings with the streets.

“They were told to highlight ranks in gray to indicate that the call was not collected, black to indicate that the number was no longer in use, yellow to indicate that the call was answered by someone other than the street and the purple/blue to indicate that the call was answered by a potential victim.”

Each man began to work for the union between May and August 2023. Some of them worked together to attack the same victims.

The judicial documents declared that Chua had signed up for the greatest number of victims. These 54 people transferred more than $ 117,000 YoN Total.

LOH cheated 53 victims to transfer $ 116,560, while Kek cheated 52 people to deliver more than $ 116,060.

Together, Yee and HENG cheated 16 people more than $ 47,000.

The Singapore police force and the Royal Police of Malaysia had worked together to share information on such cases of fraud.

On January 16, 2024, the Malaysia authorities raided condominium units in Marina Residence JB and arrested the five men.

They were taken to Singapore a week later and were accused in court on January 24, 2024. The five men will be sentenced in April.

The victims of scams in Singapore lost $ 1.1 billion in 2024, Mark a lot of record losses suffered in a single year.

In total, victims in Singapore have lost more than $ 3.4 billion for scams since 2019.

The increase in victims reports voluntarily delivered their money to the staphyters caused The scam protection bill, which was approved in Parliament in January 2025.

The law gives the police powers to restrict people to transfer money from their bank accounts, if there are reasons to believe that they are likely to transfine scammers.