Man forged salary in payslips to get higher credit limit to buy bitcoin
SINGAPORE — A man who wanted to invest in bitcoin forged payslips in order to reflect a higher salary to obtain a credit card with a higher credit limit.
Lin Mingzhong, 48, was jailed for six months on Wednesday (9 February) on one count of forgery, which he had previously pleaded guilty to.
In 2020, Lin began investing in bitcoin on online cryptocurrency trading platform “eToro” for extra income. He was then employed with Singapore Green Engineers, earning a monthly salary of $6,000.
In order to obtain the funds for investment, he decided to apply for credit cards with various banks. Around 15 March 2020, he applied for a credit card with Citibank. As he needed to declare his monthly salary, substantiated by payslips, he decided to falsely declare that his salary as $8,100 so that he could get a higher credit limit.
Lin decided to forge two payslips intending to deceive Citibank to that effect.
As he had previously worked with Mediacorp in October 2019, he used a payslip from the company as a template to reflect his false salary. Using his computer, he made two copies of the payslip and edited them to make it appear as if they were issued by Singapore Green Engineers in January and February 2020.
He also replaced the Mediacorp letterhead, edited the salary dates, the company name, and other details within the payslips.
False declared salary to get higher credit limit
On 15 March 2020, Lin logged on to Citibank’s online banking portal to apply for the credit card. He filled up an application and falsely declared his monthly salary as $8,100. He also uploaded the forged payslips to support the application.
Citibank granted Lin a credit card with a credit limit of $32,400, four times his false monthly salary. Lin was mailed this credit card via post on 24 March.
Had he declared his true monthly salary, Lin would have been granted a credit card with a credit limit of only $24,000.
Lin immediately used his new credit card to buy $31,472.13 worth of bitcoin on eToro on 26 March. He did not make any payment for this sum of money, and Citibank cancelled his credit card on 15 June.
By 17 August 2020, Lin had chalked up an outstanding of balance of $33,638.95, including interest.
Forgeries cost bank to suffer loss of over $9,000
Lin’s forgeries caused Citibank to suffer a loss of $9,638.95 - the outstanding balance on the credit card minus the $24,000 credit limit that Citibank would have granted Lin.
Lin has since declared himself bankrupt as he was unable to repay the credit card debts that he had incurred with Citibank and other banks.
His offence was discovered in August 2020, after Citibank’s Country Fraud Risk Management Branch conducted an internal investigation into his failure to pay his credit card debt.
Citibank contacted Singapore Green Engineers, who revealed that Lin’s monthly salary was only $6,000.
A Citibank manager then lodged a police report against Lin on 13 August 2020.
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