More than 9 years’ jail for serial cheat who duped 2 people of over $1.5m

A serial scammer, who was earlier given five months’ jail, is back behind bars after he reoffended and cheated two people of more than $1.5 million.

Chen Young Ja also abused his then girlfriend’s trust and helped himself to nearly $355,000 of her money, using methods such as making unauthorised withdrawals from her bank account.

Chen, 37, was sentenced to nine years and five months’ jail on Thursday after he pleaded guilty to 17 charges including multiple counts of cheating.

Forty-one other charges were considered during sentencing.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Vincent Ong said Chen was previously convicted of cheating in 2014 and was sentenced to five months’ jail.

He returned to a life of crime soon after his release and committed a string of offences from 2015 to 2019.

Chen got to know one of his victims, Ms Xu Zhilian, 60, through his mother.

In a ruse to obtain loans, Chen told his mother to tell others that he purportedly had $5 million held by the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office (IPTO).

These monies were supposedly commission from the sale of a Sentosa Cove house and could be used to repay the loans once Chen was discharged as a bankrupt.

The DPP told the court: “This was false, as the accused did not sell any house, had no commission and did not have $5 million held by IPTO.”

In December 2016, Chen’s mother repeated similar lies to Ms Xu, claiming Chen wanted to be discharged from bankruptcy and needed money for the process.

Ms Xu, who agreed to help Chen, delivered more than $1 million to him between 2016 and 2019.

She even borrowed borrowed money from her friends and family to raise funds to lend him.

Separately, Chen got to know a Singapore-based Hungarian man, Mr Janos Stefan, in mid-2016. He lied to Mr Stefan, claiming to be involved in a real estate business.

The two men met for lunch about a week later and Chen told another lie, claiming that he was involved in a real estate investment, and Mr Stefan could invest money to purportedly refinance construction works.

Chan also claimed this purported real estate investment would yield a profit of about 15 to 20 per cent of the capital invested by the Hungarian man.

Chen later pretended to be a man called “Jimmy” on WhatsApp to correspond with Mr Stefan.

Jimmy was supposedly the person in charge of the “investment”. Mr Stefan was then duped into delivering more than $524,000 to Chen between October 2016 and April 2017.

Mr Stefan, who did not receive any of the promised returns or his money from Chen, later found out the scammer was an undischarged bankrupt.

He made a police report, and Chen made partial restitution of $13,000 to him some time in or around 2017.

In an unrelated incident, Chen entered into a romantic relationship with Chinese national Gao Hui, 42.

In 2015, she shared with him the personal identification number of her debit card. When she was asleep, he stole the card and used it to withdraw cash multiple times from an ATM.

He then replaced the card in her handbag to avoid detection.

After Ms Gao returned to China in May 2016, he called her bank from a noisy location and pretended to be her by putting on a female voice with a Chinese accent.

He claimed that the card was lost and received a replacement card after he managed to answer the bank officer’s questions such as Ms Gao’s passport number and her mother’s maiden name.

He made off with nearly $355,000 of Ms Gao’s money in total.

In 2019, Chen told a Filipina that he had a job offer for her and duped her into giving him $4,000 as purported agent’s fees. In reality, there was no such offer.

He was arrested on Aug 14 that year.