Serial cheat gets preventive detention for fleecing cleaners and retiree by posing as customs officer

SINGAPORE — After he was released early from a corrective training stint, Muhammad Helmi Mohamed Shariff met a cleaner at Tampines MRT Station and found him to be a “gullible person of little means”.

Under the guise of a Singapore Customs officer, he told the 41-year-old Malaysian man that he could buy items such as gold bars at a low price and resell them back in Malaysia.

After he tricked the victim out of S$1,300, he convinced him to introduce more “customers” to him.

He ended up fleecing eight victims out of S$22,390 over a few months.

For this new string of cheating crimes, Helmi, 41, was sentenced to the minimum seven years of preventive detention on Tuesday (March 3). It is a severe punishment that is only imposed when the court is satisfied that a recalcitrant offender should be locked away so as to protect the public from him. 

He had pleaded guilty to five counts of cheating with another 11 charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

Helmi was previously sentenced to five years’ corrective training in 2013 for cheating offences. He was previously jailed three times in 2004, 2006 and 2009, similarly for cheating.

Under corrective training, an offender is unlikely to be given unconditional early release for factors such as good behaviour.

When Helmi committed his new offences, he was released on licence which meant that he had to comply with the conditions of his early release or be sent back to prison. Offenders become eligible for release on licence after serving two-thirds of their sentence.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Sanjiv Vaswani pointed out that Helmi demonstrated a “lack of propensity for rehabilitation”. 

A preventive detention suitability report found that Helmi has a 30 per cent chance of recidivism in the next two years.

OFFERED TWO CARS FOR S$300

In April 2018, Helmi met the first victim of his latest string of cheating crimes. He found him to be a “person who was easily influenced” and an easy target for a get-rich-quick scam,  DPP Sanjiv told the court.

Posing as a Singapore Customs officer, he deceived the victim into thinking he could get items at a cheap price.

In early 2018, he offered to sell the cleaner two cars — a Proton Perdana and a Mercedes Benz — for only S$300. 

When the victim gave him the cash, believing he would get the cars the next day, Helmi told him that they had been impounded in Johor and that he needed S$1,000 for their release.

He handed him the money but filed a police report in April 2019 when Helmi continued to make excuses.

Helmi realised that the victim could be easily manipulated to do his bidding, so he convinced the other man to introduce him to other cleaners later.

When the first victim told a fellow cleaner about the opportunity to buy cheap gold bars, she handed over money to Helmi through the first victim. 

Helmi, however, relayed the message to her that it was not enough and she then paid more.

PROMISED LANDED HOMES FOR S$750

Soon, Helmi learned that she wanted to be a homeowner. 

When she shared her desired locations, he showed her photographs of two landed properties and lied that the Government had repossessed them and that the Singapore Customs was selling them for a mere S$750.

She then transferred the sum to his bank account and gave him S$600 more when he told her he needed it to get “approval letters” for the purchase.

By mid-December 2018, she had given him S$3,900 for purported items seized by Customs, including luxury designer bags and jewellery. She had borrowed money from friends and relatives, as well as pawned her wedding jewellery.

When he did not deliver on his promises, she asked for a refund on Jan 15, 2019.

But Helmi, having spent all of the money, told her that he could help her get a loan from an unlicensed moneylender. He tricked her out of another S$1,000 for a “processing fee”.

OFFERED 10 LUXURY WATCHES FOR S$9,000

The first victim also introduced a Malaysian woman to Helmi. 

She handed over S$1,370 for a piano, iPhone and MacBook laptop purportedly seized by Customs but he eventually repaid her S$900 when she found out that a gold chain she bought from him was fake and threatened to report him to the police.

Separately, Helmi met a 76-year-old retiree when they shared a table at a hawker centre near Haig Road in December 2018.

They kept in touch and he gained the older man’s trust by taking him out for meals and shopping. Helmi also gave him a fake luxury watch, a chain, bracelet and two rings, which were actually costume jewellery.

After learning that the retiree liked luxury watches, Helmi told him that he was an immigrations officer and could help him buy watches in the transit area at a substantial discount.

The elderly man handed over S$9,000 over 24 occasions for 10 Rolex and Omega watches. His son, however, grew suspicious when he checked their joint bank account.

Court documents did not state if he reported it to the authorities.