2 men in court for facemask scams totalling above $30,000
SINGAPORE — Two men accused of scamming buyers into believing they had surgical masks for sale returned to court on Thursday (16 April), with one likely to face 20 additional charges.
Singaporeans Jason Chian, 42, and Marc Tay Yi Jie, 24, are separately accused of cheating buyers in February and March.
Tay is said to have cheated a woman into believing that he had 10 boxes of surgical masks available for sale at $150 through online marketplace Carousell on 13 March. Due to his deception, the victim allegedly transferred a $75 deposit through a bank application.
The court heard that investigations into Tay’s case are still underway and that he might face 20 more charges of a similar nature.
Chian faces 16 charges of cheating - the bulk of which relate to him deceiving five women into paying deposits for surgical masks between 11 February and 5 March. He is accused of cheating the women - some of them repeat buyers - into believing he could deliver of up to 380 boxes of facemasks to them. He charged the facemasks - purportedly from brands such as EVO and Diapro - at between $16.50 and $25 per box.
According to his charge sheets, Chian cheated more than $30,000 in fake mask sales from these victims.
Two of Chian’s charges state that he also deceived two of the women into believing that they could encash two dud UOB cheques of $15,000 and $4,000 as refunds for their orders of facemasks.
Both Chian and Tay will return to court 14 May pending investigations.
If convicted of cheating, the men may each face up to 10 years’ jail and a fine.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a spate of such cases, with a teenage mother admitting to her offence on Tuesday and others being charged earlier.
On Tuesday, Nur Atiena Mohamed Asidi, 19, pleaded guilty to cheating Carousell buyers over the sale of masks that were never delivered. Atiena said that she had used the illicit money to buy milk and diapers for her baby. She is currently awaiting a probation suitability report and will return to court on 27 May.
Another man, Daryl Cheong Zhi Yong, 28, was charged in court on 15 February for cheating a man into paying $175,000 as a deposit for 500 cartons of surgical face masks. The amount he allegedly cheated is the highest to date for such offences.
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