Jail for woman linked to ruse involving iPhones bought with bank card details belonging to others
Yong Huo Ying, 25, was ordered to spend a year, five months and two weeks behind bars.
SINGAPORE - A Malaysian woman
who helped to sell iPhones that were bought using bank card details belonging to others was given a jail sentence on Aug 1.
Yong Huo Ying, 25, was ordered to spend a year, five months and two weeks behind bars after she pleaded guilty to multiple charges including four counts of cheating.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Lewis Tan told the court that unknown individuals in a syndicate had recruited Yong and her accomplice, Quek Jian Qing, 21, who is also a Malaysian, in November 2024.
The pair were told to travel to Singapore and buy multiple iPhones by using the 'Apple Pay' application installed on a mobile phone that would be provided to them.
The application would show a virtual credit or debit card which could be used to make contactless payments.
These card details belonged to other individuals. Court documents did not disclose how the syndicate got hold of such information.
After buying the iPhones, Quek and Yong were tasked to sell the devices in Singapore.
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They then had to hand over the proceeds to a syndicate member, known only as 'MK', in Malaysia.
Quek and Yong were each promised up to RM3,000 (S$910) for their roles in the ruse.
Quek was in Malaysia on Nov 7, 2024 when MK handed him a Samsung mobile phone that had 'Apple Pay' pre-installed.
Quek and Yong met up in Malaysia the next day, and they took Quek's car to Singapore via the Woodlands Checkpoint.
The DPP said: 'Quek's primary role was to purchase the iPhones using the 'Apple Pay' application... while Yong's primary role was to sell the iPhones purchased by Quek.'
Later that day, Quek bought an iPhone worth $1,899 at an Apple store at Marina Bay Sands and used the app to pay for it.
A 39-year-old Singaporean woman's credit card details were linked to the platform, and he made the purchase without the victim's consent.
The woman, identified in court documents as A1, received an SMS alert from her bank about the transaction, and she lodged a police report soon after.
Using the credit card details of other victims in the 'Apple Pay' app, Quek went to other places that same day, including an Apple store in Orchard Road, and bought six more iPhones. The seven iPhones were worth more than $13,000 in total.
Yong later sold two of the iPhones at a shop in Marine Parade, while Quek sold five of them.
Together, they sold the seven iPhones for $1,520 each and conspired to transfer some of the sale proceeds totalling $3,040 to a Singapore bank account provided by the syndicate.
The DPP told the court: 'But for the prompt intervention of the local enforcement authorities who arrested Quek and Yong as they attempted to leave Singapore for Malaysia on the same night, (the pair) would have been able to leave Singapore with the remaining proceeds – $7,600 in cash.'
On Aug 1, the prosecutor urged the court to sentence Yong to at least a year, five months and two weeks' jail.
He said that Yong did not buy or attempt to buy any iPhones.
The syndicate also did not provide her with any devices to make such purchases, the court heard.
Quek was sentenced to three years and 10 days' jail in May.
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