Man allegedly linked to international scam syndicate faces 6 charges including cheating
The joint operation was carried out by the Singapore Police Force, the Hong Kong Police Force and the Royal Malaysia Police from April to June. PHOTOS: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
SINGAPORE – A man allegedly linked to an international scam syndicate is now facing multiple charges for offences including cheating.
Malaysian Ng Hsien Fu, 29, was one of 11 people arrested in a joint operation carried out by the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the Hong Kong Police Force and the Royal Malaysia Police from April to June.
Together, the agencies managed to disrupt a criminal syndicate that operated devices used to make scam calls across the three jurisdictions, SPF said in a statement on June 17.
Ng was arrested in Malaysia on June 3 before he was handed over to the Singapore authorities. He was charged in court two days later.
Besides one cheating charge, Ng also faces five counts of being in possession of SIM cards used to commit cheating.
According to court documents, he was overseas on or around May 14 when he allegedly had more than 700 of such cards and all of them were issued with Singapore phone numbers.
Ng is also accused of being part of a criminal conspiracy to commit cheating between February and May.
SPF said in their statement that the collaborative intelligence-sharing initiative between the three police forces and combined investigative efforts revealed that the scam syndicate had established a sophisticated criminal network across the three jurisdictions.
A police spokesperson added: 'Investigations uncovered that the syndicate employed an advanced cloud-based remote operating system, enabling them to link to GSM mobile phone networks across the three jurisdictions.
'This arrangement allowed the syndicate to operate remotely and route fraudulent calls through our local mobile phone networks, leading victims in Singapore to believe that they were receiving calls from within Singapore.'
The authorities seized 226 GSM gateway devices in total – 75 from Singapore, 10 from Malaysia and 141 from Hong Kong.
SPF also said that the operation was coordinated through FRONTIER+ , a transnational law enforcement platform comprising 10 jurisdictions including Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
Ng is expected to plead guilty on July 22.
Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times' court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts.
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