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Man posed as CPIB officer, threatened ex-girlfriend's boyfriend over sex videos

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SINGAPORE — An ex-girlfriend entrusted him with a hard drive that contained videos of her having sex with her current partner.

Instead of handing it over to the police on her instructions, the 27-year-old man used the footage to blackmail the ex-girlfriend’s partner through an elaborate scheme.

The man, who works in a recruitment firm, assumed at least three fake identities to trick the victim into believing that he was being investigated for allegedly having confidential information from another company. He also impersonated a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) officer to blackmail the man with the sex videos.

On Thursday (2 January), the man was jailed for 16 weeks and fined $10,000 after he admitted to one charge of impersonation, one of criminal intimidation, and one related to illegal gambling.

He cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the identity of three victims who were involved, including his 26-year-old ex-girlfriend, A. The latter had broken up with the accused in 2015 but maintained a turbulent friendship with him afterwards.

A went on to date a 28-year-old man, B, who owned a company that handled expatriate and immigration services.

In mid-December 2017, A became aware that a 27-year-old woman, C, had sent B a text message, telling him to delete all the videos showing B and C having sex from his hard disk. C was B’s ex-girlfriend who worked in another company as an immigration consultant.

After reading the message, A realised that B had deceived her about his relationship with C, as he had maintained that they were colleagues. B and C had been seeing each other, but broke up on 30 December 2017.

Later that month, A checked B’s phone and discovered more messages of the same nature. She went to B’s residence and found the hard drive with sex videos involving B and her, and B with other women, including C.

Worried that B might use the videos against her, A passed the accused the hard drive, asking him to hand it to the police as she wanted to remain anonymous. She told the accused that C might have given B confidential information on B’s business competitors.

On 9 January 2018, the accused called C, impersonating a CPIB officer. He accused her of disclosing personal data belonging to her company’s clients and of moonlighting. He insisted on meeting C in Paya Lebar, but C grew suspicious after colleagues told her that CPIB officers would not arrange for meetings outside of the CPIB office. She filed a police report.

From 19 February 2018, the accused put in motion his plan to extort from B. Using a new SIM card in a mobile phone, he contacted B and introduced himself as “Fred”, the fictitious CPIB officer. He claimed that “Fred’s” wife, “Ann”, had obtained and accessed B’s hard disk.

He spun the tale that “Ann” was the legal advisor in C’s company and knew one of the women in the sex videos. He lied that “Ann” had received the hard disk from another fictitious person, “Rod”, who was the main investor of C’s company. He claimed that “Ann” wanted to hand the hard disk to the police.

Throughout his two-day exchange with B, the accused posed as “Fred”, “Ann” and “Rod” to text B, causing him distress.

Pretending that he was “Fred”, the accused proposed that B contributed $5,000 towards buying a $15,000 Hermes bag to placate “Ann”. When B asked for time to raise the money, the accused threatened to disseminate B’s sex videos.

B relented and offered a $6,000 luxury watch, and agreed to give a further $1,000 at “Fred’s” insistence.

The accused then drafted a letter of agreement to state that B would hand over the watch and $1,000 in cash in exchange for the hard disk. The letter bore the fictitious particulars of a “Fred Issac Tan”.

The two arranged to meet at Ripple Bay Condominium on 20 February between 11pm and 11.30pm. Unbeknownst to the accused, B had made a police report and several police officers were standing by at the condominium.

The accused was then arrested. He admitted to posing as a CPIB officer to speak to C in order to ascertain the name of her company.

He was escorted to a unit at the condominium and gambling-related items, including coloured chips, a poker table, and dices were seized.

Representing the accused, lawyer Adrian Wee said that his client was seeking retribution on B for the shoddy way that B had treated A.

“Our client prepared an agreement which he intended for parties to sign when they met. The said agreement contained a clause which stated that the watch and $1,000 would be returned if B displayed ‘good conduct’,” said Wee, who sought 11 weeks’ jail and a $6,000 fine for the sentence.

Wee said the man has since left the “toxic relationship” with A and made efforts to turn his life around.

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