Malaysian jailed 30 months for credit card fraud
An unemployed Malaysian who used fake credit cards to cheat in Singapore was jailed 30 months on Monday (9 January).
Lim Weng Yeau, 25, pleaded guilty to seven charges of possessing fake credit cards and cheating in the State Courts. A total of 14 other offences were also taken into consideration.
According to court documents, Lim, who is from Selangor, Malaysia, had been unable to secure a job after graduating from university.
While trying to find employment, Lim came across a post by a person by the name of ‘Sure’ on Facebook in July 2016 about a low-risk and highly profitable job.
Lim contacted ‘Sure’ via instant messaging service WeChat, and was informed that his role was to buy goods in foreign countries using credit cards given to him. In return, he would receive commission equivalent to eight per cent of the value of his purchases.
After receiving the credit cards in Kuala Lumpur on 4 September, Lim went to ION Orchard the next day. He tried to buy a bag from the Bottega Veneta store in the mall using two credit cards but the transaction did not go through.
He went to Changi Airport later that day and successfully bought air tickets from Malindoair worth $850 with one of the credit cards.
A total of three credit cards were found in his possession when he was arrested by the police. The cards were found to be fake by VISA and MasterCard.
Before meting out the sentence, District Judge Low Wee Ping called Lim “naïve”. He added that Lim would have been facing a sentence of 50 months or more if not for the representation by Lim’s lawyer, Ranadhir Gupta.
