• Jason Chian was jailed in 2011 and 2013 for similar cheating offences
• This time, he told his victims he had face masks to sell and collected downpayments
• He has so far paid his victims back about 9 per cent of the money owed

SINGAPORE — Jason Chian, 42, had already served four and a half years behind bars after being convicted twice of cheating offences — one of which was committed when he was working at a job he got through the Yellow Ribbon Project, which aims to give ex-convicts a second chance.

Early this year, he returned to his old ways by exploiting a surge in demand for surgical face masks, brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He collected down payments for masks from his latest victims and issued them fake invoices forged on his mobile phone.

He never delivered the masks, and ended up cheating seven buyers of S$41,288 in total over a few days.

On Tuesday (July 28), the Singaporean was sentenced to a jail term of three and a half years for his latest crimes.

He pleaded guilty to seven cheating charges, with another 10 taken into consideration for sentencing. He could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined for each charge.

The court heard that Chian decided to start selling face masks in January, but by the next month, he had begun experiencing difficulties getting them due to a global shortage.

He was “overcome with greed by the sheer amount of monies received” and began using the down payments for the masks for his personal expenses, said Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Matthew Choo.

In mid-February, one of his victims set up a WhatsApp group with him and other interested buyers.

Chian told them he was a supplier of assorted face mask brands, adding that he could source them from Batam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The buyers collated orders from their friends and family through the group, then placed a combined order with Chian.

He got them to place a 50 per cent downpayment, and gave them fictitious invoices in order to convince them of the authenticity of their orders.

One victim handed over S$4,000 as a deposit for 400 boxes of face masks.

After Chian failed to deliver, the victims began refunding the money that their family and friends had given them for their orders.

Separately, Chian cheated an employee of a KTV lounge that he patronised.

He told the Chinese national that his family sold medical instruments and equipment and he had a ready stock of masks in a warehouse.

She transferred him 44,000 renminbi (about S$9,065) via WeChat, intending to buy masks to send them back to her family and friends in China.

Chian similarly created fake sales invoices and DHL delivery order slips and invoices to create the illusion that the masks had been shipped from Singapore to China.

Chian’s victims made at least six police reports against him, and he was subsequently arrested. He has made restitution amounting to about 9 per cent of the cheated amount to two victims.

JAILED 3 YEARS IN 2013

DPP Choo sought the sentence imposed, pointing out that Chian’s modus operandi was similar to his second conviction in 2013.

Chian had been jailed for three years then.

He was released from prison in July 2012 after serving 18 months behind bars for similar offences of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust.

Later in 2012, while working as a Yamaha music promoter at a Best Denki outlet, he told customers that he could sell them discounted items, then issued them fake receipts.

Yamaha had offered him the job under the Yellow Ribbon Project.

He also got other victims to invest in a fake scheme involving the supposed trading of gold, sugar, coffee and cocoa commodities. He cheated S$40,630 from 17 victims in total.

DPP Choo also noted that the police had highlighted that e-commerce scams jumped by 116 per cent in January to March, in comparison with the same period last year.

Covid-19-related items such as face masks were one of the top five items involved in such scams.

On Monday, another mask cheat — Daryl Cheong Zhi Yong, 28 — was sentenced to three years and two months’ jail for cheating buyers of S$185,260.