Love can make you do stupid things.
Some lovers ignore red flags, others want to get married within two days of meeting their “soulmate”.
Then, after the relationship is over and you take your rose tinted glasses off, you realise you’ve been a huge dummy.
Fortunately, all you usually lose in that situation is your heart and maybe some wasted years, but this woman lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and ended up in jail, all because of love.
Jailed For Handling Criminal Proceeds
Ng Koon Lay, a former constituency manager with the People’s Association, was sentenced to 20 months’ jail after she helped criminals outside the country to open bank accounts and transfer cash.
The 64-year-old pleaded guilty to three charges under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes Act and one count of dishonestly receiving stolen property, reported CNA.
Like most online scams, it began with a conversation on Facebook.
Ng met a man named Greg L. Johnson on Facebook in March 2015.
When she had some financial trouble, Ng asked Greg for a loan, and he said a friend was willing to loan her $9,000 as long as she provided her bank account to receive the funds.
All she had to do then was keep the amount she needed and transfer the rest to another bank account.
Despite how sketchy this sounded, Ng accepted the offer.
So, $71,000 was transferred to her UOB bank account, and she forwarded S$62,000 to another designated account.
Then, in a twist that everyone saw coming, the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) called Ng and informed her that her account was used to receive illegal funds.
The $71,000 had been transferred by a victim of an email spoofing scam, according to CNA.
CAD warned Ng twice not to receive any more money from unknown people, and to stop contacting Greg. She also surrendered her Facebook account.
That should have been the end of the story, but Ng chose to set up a second Facebook account to contact Greg, to ask for another loan.
Greg agreed, but only if she went through the same procedure, and accepted money into her account.
Despite CAD’s warnings, Ng acceded.
Did the Same For Another Man
Then, in 2017, Ng helped another man named David to transfer illegal funds, two years after they met on WhatsApp.
David said he needed her bank account to receive funds for his hospitalisation fees and his business.
If she agreed, Ng would be able to use some of the funds.
You can probably guess what she did next.
Ng opened two bank accounts to receive the funds, despite being aware that David had lied to her in the past, saying he was in prison even though he was sending messages to her on WhatsApp.
Within just two weeks in September 2017, a total of S$47,050 was transferred into one of her new accounts; money from four victims of internet love scams.
Another love scam victim transferred S$174,750 into her other account the next month.
According to CNA, the funds in both accounts were primarily withdrawn overseas, but Ng used some of the money for her own purposes.
But why? Why would a person do something so dangerous and dumb?
Remember what I said about love?
Ng Herself Was a Victim of a Love Scam
According to her defence lawyer, Ng was herself a victim of a love scam, as she was wooed by both Greg and David, who claimed to be an American sailor and an oil trader from Switzerland respectively.
Why would that be enough to impress anyone?
At one point in their correspondence, Greg told Ng that his luggage had been detained by Malaysian customs because it contained more than US$1 million in cash.
Ng went to Kuala Lumpur and was allegedly shown the luggage.
She then sold her three-room HDB flat and borrowed money from others just to help Greg out, transferring S$160,000 to him.
She believed David as well when he gave her the exact same excuse.
In her defence, Ng’s lawyer said she was “a lonely single woman who carried a burden of looking after her mentally and physically disabled sister”.
He asked the judge for a year’s imprisonment, but she got 20 months instead.
It could have been a lot worse, though.
Ng could have been jailed for up to five years for dishonestly receiving stolen property and up to ten years for assisting another person to retain benefits from criminal conduct, according to CNA.
So, if a stranger online asks you for money or for your bank account details, you should probably end your correspondence with them, even if you think you’re in love.
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