A Singaporean man cheated 78 strangers of their money over four years by pretending he needed help.
Often preying on younger girls and students at MRT stations, the man would claim that he didn’t have money to get back home and would ‘borrow’ money from his victims.
Source: winds lu on Flickr. For illustration purposes only.
In total, he cheated his victims of about S$28,000 to cover his purported expenses.
On Friday (23 Sep), he pleaded guilty to five counts of cheating and was sentenced to one year’s jail.
According to TODAY, Byron Yeaw – now 26 – has exploited strangers’ kindness for over four years since early 2019.
His tactics usually involve waiting at MRT stations and approaching passersby, lying that he had to travel to a distant part of the country.
After that, he’ll ask them to check the cost of a taxi or private-hire vehicle to the location.
With the premise set, he’ll tell his victims that he has to arrange the rides himself to claim the sum from his employer.
The victims would then send him the amounts after receiving assurances through the form of his identification documents.
Yeaw would subsequently use the money transferred by his victims on his personal expenses.
This reportedly went on for four years, and the sum scammed totalled about S$28,000.
Yeaw’s motivation behind his crimes was reportedly due to personal financial issues.
In 2019, when he started his cheating spree, Yeaw was reportedly an employee with Singtel.
He was arrested in Mar 2020 and once again in 2021. The latter resulted from attempting to cheat strangers of larger funds to fund his gambling habits.
Although he was released for the second time in Aug 2021, Yeaw continued to cheat until Mar 2022, when he was remanded.
One of his more prominent victims was an NSF he duped of S$2,000.
Yeaw reportedly met the NSF at Yew Tee MRT Station in Feb 2022 and told him that he only had S$0.50 in his bank account.
He then told a story of how his human resources department had not given him his S$3,000 salary on time and that he needed to borrow money to survive till the end of the month.
Despite only having S$2,100 in his bank account, the NSF gave most of that to Yeaw.
The victim only wisened up and lodged a police report after Yeaw attempted to ask for the remaining S$100.
On Friday (23 Sep), Yeaw pleaded guilty to five counts of cheating and was handed a jail sentence of one year. For each cheating offence, he could’ve been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
TODAY reports that he has made full restitution to all his victims.
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Featured image by 雄威 蔡 on Flickr and is for illustration purposes only.
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