Three men in Singapore have been sentenced to probation after scamming people with fake Jay Chou concert tickets.
As reported by the Today Online, two students were sentenced to 21 months’ probation each for cheating five victims of S$3,800, The pair had sold fake tickets to a Jay Chou concert held in Singapore last year.
Walden Lee Guo Quan, 22, had bought original tickets to Chou’s Singapore concert in September 2016 but realised there was a high demand for the tickets. Lee emailed his friend, Ang Teck Wee, 22, a digitla copy of the original tickets and told him to change the details.
Lee is a private school student and Ang is a Nanyang Technological University undergraduate.
Between 30 March 2016 and 17 April 2016, Lee sold three pairs of tickets priced from S$750 to S$800 to three buyers using a Carousell account called “Lin_Yuxian”. Ang sold four more tickets under the Carousell account “unstoppable136” for S$720 each.
“To her horror, she found out that the two tickets she was holding onto were fakes. (She) immediately tried to contact the accused but he became uncontactable,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Vadivalagan Shanmuga.
During the sentencing, District Judge Ong Chin Rhu told the duo they were the “luckiest” she had seen in her years in court. “You’re still in school, but one day you’ll finish school. The world out there has a lot of temptation, said the judge. “There are ‘get rich quick’ ways or other temptations. I hope that through this episode, you’ll learn how to make the right decision. Count it as a blessing.”
The pair were sentenced to 21 months probation and will be under an electronic monitoring system for four months with a curfew from 11pm to 6am. Each must perform 180 hours of community service and their parents had to sign a bond of S$5,000 to ensure their good behaviour over the 21 months.
The Straits Times reports that a third man, Koh Book Hwee, also 22, has been sentenced with 18 months of probation. Koh pleaded guilty to a cheating charge involving $700 and must also serve 180 hours of community service.
Koh, who is reportedly waiting to enrol in an overseas university, had heard aboout Lee and Ang’s scam and wanted in. He too set up an account on Carousell to sell the fake tickets to his victim, Ms Png Zhongyou, 24 who bought two of them for $700.
However, Koh had “cold feet” and did not turn up to meet the victim but asked Ang to complete the transaction instead.
DPP Vadivalagan said: “However, once he got (her) to confirm his meet up with her to pass her the fake tickets and to collect the payment from her, he had cold feet.”
Ang met Ms Png at Commonwealth MRT station to hand over the bogus tickets in exchange for $700.
Ms Png only realised the tickets were fake when she arrived at the Sports Hub on 3 September 2016 for the concert and was not allowed in.
