There are endless fraud cases in Singapore, and Brother Eye has reported too many fraud cases before... What phishing website scams, police self-reported homes, couriers have prohibited items, etc...
But most of them are online scams, and real-life scams have been gradually eliminated by scammers because the risk is too high.
The trick is simple and crude, extremely imaginative, and can succeed, full of absurd joy, even the most daring screenwriters dare not write so. CNA has been made into a documentary~
At the same time, more details of the case were disclosed to us...
How on earth did he fake his rich second-generation persona? And how did he carefully design the trap step by step? Finally, why did he get sentenced for a full 4 years?
Next, these questions will be answered one by one...
Buy a mansion and set up a mansion
According to the real estate agent in the documentary, on May 15, 2018, a friend contacted him and said that he had a potential customer who wanted to introduce him.
That potential customer is Gerard. Gerrard said he wanted to build a series of luxury homes, each budgeted at S$20 million, and let the real estate agent show him the property immediately.
According to real estate agents, in his three-decade career, even the richest people would negotiate prices when they bought a house, but whether the deposit was S$50,000 or S$5 million, Gerard signed the check without blinking an eye to pay the deposit.
In just three days, houses in prime locations such as Bishan Hill, Orchard Road and Gran Chi Road were all looked at, and the total amount of houses with deposits exceeded S$140 million.
(Schematic diagram of the mansion)
However, according to the information required at the time of signing, the address showing that Gerard lives is an HDB flat. He is not on the watch list of the Monetary Authority of Singapore or the United Nations Security Council, and his father's name provided by Gerrard is indeed a wealthy South Korean.
The check naturally did not arrive, and when the agent repeatedly pressed Gerard, he claimed that the time to inherit the estate was delayed, so it could not be paid temporarily. After some time, the deal also fell through.
But Gerard's goal has been achieved, and with these legal documents to buy the mansion, as well as selfies in the mansion, he can implement the next step.
Partnership entrepreneurship
"Start" healthy tea
In September 2018, Gerard found his first victim. He contacted one of his middle school classmates, Zhou, and expressed that he wanted to learn about the other person's work and wanted to join him in the development.
According to Mr. Zhou, in his memory, Gerard was a very quiet and peaceful person. He initially received a message from Gerard saying that he was interested in his job selling products.
"I see you're doing well, can I join you?" Gerard asked him.
After the meeting, the enthusiasm he showed really convinced Zhou that he sincerely wanted to join. Gerard also showed Zhou his selfies in the mansion and the legal documents for buying the mansion to show that he is very powerful.
After winning Zhou's trust, Gerard proposed to partner in opening a milk tea shop called Fitness Tea, according to Zhou, he was a fitness trainer, plus trust Zhou, so he agreed. Fitness Tea soon registered with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority under their names.
But the first thing Gerard did after opening the store was to ask Zhou for identity information to open new mobile phone bundles, which would come with the latest phones. He told Zhou that he would use the company's account to pay the bills, and that the phone numbers were intended to be used for the company's business.
Gerrard said that Zhou does not need to do anything, he will solve it one by one.
Recruitment of female shop assistants
He also talked to her about marriage
In October 2018, Gerard began hiring staff for Fitness Tea. The first employee was Jenna (pseudonym), and Jenna's father, Mr. Lin, explained everything at that time in the documentary.
"From registering a company, registering a mobile number, to placing job advertisements and making business cards, he really didn't have a single loophole. If you meet such a person, you will never suspect that his identity is fake," Lin said.
According to Lin, Jenna trusted him so much that she even introduced her brother to work for the company.
Jenna and her brother also showed the family the letter of appointment and Gerard's business card, but everything was in order without any problems, and even the details of the number of days off and the transportation allowance on the letter were very clear.
But in the first few days after Jenna's employment, Mr. Lin found her home with a lot of mobile phone bills, and after inquiring, learned that she was asked to sign up for the company's mobile phone plan, which would be used by future employees.
Gerard said any purchases she bought would be reimbursed at the end of the month, leaving Mr. Lin suspicious.
Jenna not only didn't realize it was wrong, but even excitedly told her parents one day that Gerard had proposed to her, and that he had paid the first payment for a mansion.
"He promised my daughter that he would make her a rich lady," Mr. Lin recalled. "They will have a good life, not only will they have a maid to serve her, but she will not have to work anymore, just do what she loves."
Mr. Lin immediately stopped Jenna and asked her to leave. This caused Jenna to suffer from depression, and even began to have violent tendencies and needed to go to the clinic for psychotherapy.
Gerard who has not disappeared
It all happened simultaneously, and after suspicion from both sides, Gerard disappeared without a trace with the phones that signed the package in someone else's name.
Gerard removed Zhou's name from the company and blocked all his contact details.
On Zhou's side, in order to terminate the package early, the default fee alone had already cost him S$10,000.
Jenna also lost S$5,890 on these mobile phone bills.
But that didn't end there, and Gerrard continued to cheat later.
In November 2019, Gerard met "Sam" through a same-sex dating app. Every time they met, he showed up in a different luxury car, giving Sam the impression that he was wealthy.
The luxury cars were rented with Mr. Lin's son's driver's license, and Jenna lent him her brother's driver's license before that.
He had driven Sam to a luxury apartment, which he said was one of his real estate investments, and logged into a bank account to show Sam his father's S$1 million legacy.
It was all premeditated, and Gerard realized that Sam wanted to make more money, so he acted when everything was ready. He told Sam that he was now going to invest in more real estate because of that he had to sell some of his existing properties, and now he gave Sam a "special price".
Based on trust, Sam transferred S$4,200 to Gerard on the spot, but this luxury apartment does not belong to Gerard...
At the same time, Gerard also said that Sam's current investment prospects are not good, let him follow his own investment, let him talk about the funds transferred to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) account that Gerard shared with his mother, and explained that because the "account" is private, only Gerard can see it.
This time, Sam not only transferred the money in his account to him, but also borrowed money from banks and legitimate money lenders for more "investments", and Gerard promised to repay the loan through Sam's bank account because the investment was made in Sam's name.
To do this, Sam also handed over his debit card and bank tokens.
In December 2018, a money lender showed up at Sam's home and asked him for money. He also found that the balance in his bank card had been emptied by Gerard.
When Sam reported the incident to the police in January 2019, his loss had reached S$100,000! That included money he lent Gerard to run Fitness Tea, and he was also persuaded to sign up for a bundled phone plan.
Everything is forced?
In February 2019, the Singapore police indicted Gerard Lowe after the conclusion of an investigation into the fraud case.
The prosecution did not object to bail, so Gerrard's mother paid him S$15,000 bail. But during his bail, Gerard continued to teach and continue to work fraudulently.
In September 2020, Singapore police again indicted Gerrard on new charges.
After Gerard learned that he was being investigated by the police, he first called the police, saying that he was forced, all of which was abused and violent by his boyfriend to force him to deceive, and he called the police many times after this incident.
The problem is that this boyfriend also agrees with Gerard's statement... This muddied all the previous investigations by the Singapore police, and it took a full nine months to sort everything out.
Finally, in June 2020, Gerrard pleaded guilty and confessed everything. On March 16 of this year, Gerrard was sentenced to 67 months in prison.
Gerard's "whitewashing" experience
At the end, Gerard shared his story inside Changi Prison.
At this time, he was 28 years old, saying that his parents divorced when he was a child, and his mother and grandmother raised him. At school, his classmates ridiculed him for not having a father.
In 2018, his grandmother was hospitalized with illness, the family could not afford the medical bills, and his mother was diagnosed with cancer, which made him crazy to make a quick buck.
"I just want to get the money quickly and pay off the debt I owe," he said.
So he Googled how to make quick money, and a website told him that he could scam close friends and relatives in this way, and he didn't care if he was making ill-gotten gains. But because he didn't have many friends, he thought of disguising himself as rich to attract people who weren't close to him.
He said he regretted what he had done, especially because he had caused harm to his mother. His mother not only released him on bail, but also attended his court hearings and dragged his sick body to visit him in prison every month.
But she died three months after he began serving his sentence, feeling he had "lost everything."
To the victims of these scams, he said he was really sorry.
"No matter what I did, it was irreparable, but I really hope I can prove to all the victims and those around me that I have changed."
(The source of this article is from CNA)
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