S’porean Man Cheated Married Friend of $30K By Telling Him He Fathered A Child With KTV Hostess

Oftentimes, we hear people say:

“Don’t make multiple fake friends. Make a few real friends.”

And here’s where two groups of people start to appear; the first, a group of young and obnoxious that simply laugh the words off.

“What’s all that codswallop?” they will say before they get their arses burnt by folks they once thought their friends.

And the other group will be the wise and curious, who make friends with an intention and not simple convenience.

“It’s better to make few friends than multiple who backstab you,” they say. “Case in point?”

“This.”

“S’porean Man Cheated Married Friend of $30K By Telling Him He Fathered A Child With KTV Hostess”

And after reading it through, I can ascertain:

Those words are definitively true.

What happened?

According to STOMP, a man who initially helped his friend deal with a problem with a former mistress ended up turning on him and cheating him of more than $30,000, for the maintenance of a fictitious child.

The scam was so elaborate, in fact, that Singaporean Ho Chee Wai, 34, started fake Facebook accounts and even got another friend for the ruse.

The plot lasted over nine months.

Apparently, the entire ‘fiasco’ first commenced when Ho’s married friend, Mr Soo Guo Woei, got close to Vietnamese KTV hostess Ah Thao after corresponding at WKTV pub in 2011.

The affair, which lasted around two months, concluded soon after Ms Ah Thao returned to Vietnam, when her work permit in Singapore ended.

Shortly after she reached home, however, she had bad news for Mr Soo:

She might have become pregnant with his child.

Unclear of what to do, Mr Soo, a retail executive at electronics store Best Denki, asked for Ho’s advice, who told him to ask Ms Ah Thao to go for an abortion.

Thereafter, Mr Soo stopped all forms of communication with the woman.

Thought I was a real friend? Gotcha.

Three years later, in 2014, Ho turned tail on his friend to hatch a money-spinning scheme. He roped in another friend Chua Rui Xiang, who took on the guise of Ms Ah Thao’s current boyfriend.

Taking on the moniker of Ah Xing, Chua proceeded to demand payments for the maintenance of Ms Ah Thao’s ‘child’, whom he claimed Mr Soo had fathered. To drive the point home, Chua threatened to emit photographs of Mr Soo and Ms Ah Thao, as well as their child, to Mr Soo’s wife.

Ho also created three fake Facebook accounts for Ah Xing, Ms Ah Thao and the child.

(Wah, child also got Facebook account!?)

In February 2014, Mr Soo obeyed the threats and sent the required sums of money to Chua’s bank account. Every time the designated financial sum was transmitted, Chua would share it with Ho.

Oblivious

Unaware that Ho was the mastermind, Mr Soo sought him for his help once again. From then on, Ho took on the job of ‘liaising’ with Ms Ah Thao’s “boyfriend”, and would inform Mr Soo of the amounts required for the child’s maintenance.

Once conveyed, Mr Soo would transfer the money to Ho’s bank account, or pass him cash and other valuables.

The grand scheme only ended after around nine months, when Mr Soo made a police report in November 2014.

Sentence

While most fake friends would’ve gotten away successfully (no doubt because their crimes probably aren’t this serious), Ho didn’t belong to this category. On Friday, District Judge Marvin Bay expressed that the case represents a “truly brazen and cynical exploitation” by Ho of his friend’s situation, as well as desire to “do the right thing” to support the imaginary child.

Ho, an interior designer, was subsequently sentenced to 14 weeks’ jail on Friday (5 April) and made full restitution of the $30,900 cheated to Mr Soo in February last year (2018).

Netizens react

Following Stomp’s publication of the incident, Netizens were critical in their views. Some, for instance, berated Ho’s backstabbing of his own friend.

The majority, however, condemned Mr Soo and Ho alike.

And to the end, it seems that savagery really runs deep in the comments section.

Though really, it does serve as a lesson to me.

Keep my pokeballs where they belong…

And new pokemon shouldn’t be captured. If you get what I mean.