Ex-Singtel staff jailed for cheating friends to get mobile phones, posing as woman in love scam

SINGAPORE —After pleading guilty to cheating his friends in order to get “free” mobile phones, Aloysius Nah Ming Yuan turned to a different kind of scam to get some quick cash.

While out on bail, he posed as a woman on dating applications such as Tinder and OkCupid, ultimately duping two men into giving him S$3,700.

On Tuesday (June 14), the 27-year-old Singaporean was jailed for one year and eight months. He pleaded guilty to a total of 10 cheating charges, with another 16 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

The sentence was backdated to Sept 27 last year when he was remanded after committing his latest offences.

The court heard that in 2017, when he worked as a customer service officer with telecommunications company Singtel, he hatched a plan to ask his friends to enter into mobile service agreements with Singtel and other telcos StarHub and M1.

From February to October that year, Nah tricked 11 friends into believing that they would not be charged any fees, and got them to hand over the mobile phones they received after entering into the agreements.

He also lied to the victims that they would be helping him to hit his sales quota as a Singtel employee. They handed over 35 mobile phones worth at least S$38,900.

They then had to fork out S$32,000 when the respective telcos charged them for fees. Another S$12,000 in fees remained outstanding.

Nah was fired by Singtel in September 2017 and charged in January 2018.

While out on court-imposed bail, he contacted a woman on e-marketplace Carousell around December 2019. She offered a service of making online payments for clients in return for a commission that would be paid in cash.

Nah lied that he needed to make two transfers totalling S$2,850 to a POSB bank account for business dealings. This was, in fact, for betting-related purposes.

The woman then transferred the sum to the POSB account and Nah did not reimburse or pay her back.

He was only identified through various screenings conducted by the police with Carousell and Google.

In March 2020, he was remanded for 20 days before being released on court bail once more. He then pleaded guilty to these crimes in January last year and remained out on bail before he was sentenced.

However, around March last year, he began posing as a female named “Xiaohui” on dating apps and used a photo of a woman he had found online.

When he found his targets and felt that he had a chance to cheat them of money, he progressed to speaking to them on messaging platforms such as Telegram, WhatsApp or Instagram.

He proposed to enter into sexual relationships with them and eventually told them that he needed money for personal expenses or to solve some family problems.

One victim transferred S$1,600 to him, while the other transferred S$1,050. Nah has made restitution of S$500 to date to his victims.

He could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined for each cheating offence.