SINGAPORE: While undergoing drug rehabilitation, a man befriended a fellow inmate who roped him into giving up his bank account for cash.
Four of the bank accounts in his name were used by criminals to funnel more than S$1.4 million (US$1.1 million). The offender later handed over more bank accounts to another criminal he had met on WhatsApp, in exchange for game credits.
The funds in these bank accounts included scam proceeds from a 62-year-old woman who wanted to buy a mop on Facebook but fell for a malware-enabled phishing scam and a 73-year-old woman who was swindled in a police impersonation scam.
Mohamed Muliandy Mohd Moksin, a 44-year-old Singaporean, was sentenced to jail for four-and-a-half years on Tuesday (Sep 23). He was also fined S$550.
Muliandy pleaded guilty to five charges – a mix of money mule-related offences and drug charges – with another four charges taken into consideration.
THE CASE
The court heard that Muliandy was undergoing drug rehabilitation in Selarang Park Prison Complex prior to Aug 24, 2023, when he befriended an inmate he knew as AJ.
AJ told him he was looking to purchase bank account details from others and would hand the information to an unidentified person in exchange for money.
AJ offered to pay Muliandy S$350 for his internet banking information, as well as his ATM cards and PINs.
Muliandy agreed and received the sum promised for giving AJ access to his banking facilities. Unbeknownst to Muliandy, three other bank accounts were later opened under his main DBS account.
Between Aug 24 and Sep 30 in 2023, a total of S$1,432,969.90 was deposited into Muliandy’s four accounts, and S$1,427,976.49 was withdrawn.
The accounts are believed to have been used to facilitate the rapid movement of money involved in illicit activities such as scams, said the prosecutor.
VICTIMS
One of the victims was a 62-year-old Singaporean woman, who lodged a report in September 2023 stating she had seen an advertisement on Facebook for a mop.
Using her mobile phone, she clicked on the ad and was taken to a WhatsApp chat for more enquiries, after which she followed instructions to download a file and an app on her phone.
However, a few days later, she discovered unauthorised withdrawals from her United Overseas Bank and POSB bank accounts amounting to about S$76,800.
Investigations revealed that downloading the unknown file and application had allowed scammers to withdraw funds from her bank accounts using a malware-enabled phishing scam.
More than S$80,000 was withdrawn and deposited into a CIMB Bank Berhad account. Of this, S$4,460.48 was transferred to Muliandy’s DBS account.
His four DBS accounts were later frozen by the police, but contained only between S$0.01 and S$4,981.59.
While Muliandy was on bail, he began playing a jackpot game on a mobile application and would periodically deposit money into his game account in exchange for credits.
In early September 2024, an unidentified person referred to as B in court papers texted Muliandy on WhatsApp, offering him S$200 worth of jackpot game credits.
In exchange, Muliandy had to provide a bank account. B claimed it was for his company’s transactions.
Muliandy gave B the details of his existing OCBC account, which B used to facilitate his control of scam proceeds. This included a sum of more than S$115,000 taken from a 73-year-old Singaporean.
The woman had received a call purportedly from HSBC Bank, warning that someone had tried to withdraw more than S$10,000 from account.
When the woman said she had not authorised the withdrawal, she was transferred to a “Sergeant Yeo”, who sought the woman’s particulars and balance amounts in her personal and company bank accounts.
Sergeant Yeo then claimed the woman was suspected of being involved in money laundering, as a suspect had transferred S$80,000 into her account.
The woman was instructed to move her funds to other accounts purportedly belonging to an investigation officer for “financial inspection”.
Sergeant Yeo showed the woman a letter bearing the letterhead of the Singapore Police Force and transferred the call to someone else, who warned her not to tell anyone.
In September 2024, the woman transferred a total of S$973,500 from her personal and company bank accounts to five different bank accounts. After doing so, she told her husband what happened and discovered she had been scammed.
According to Muliandy, he did not receive the S$200 worth of game credits from B as the latter claimed to be unable to log into Muliandy’s bank account.
However, B asked him for more bank accounts, and Muliandy opened a new Maybank account in his name and passed the information to B.
B then transferred the S$200 worth of game credits to Muliandy.
B used the Maybank account to funnel scam proceeds, including a sum of about S$25,000 from a 52-year-old Singaporean woman.
The woman had received a call purportedly from Standard Chartered Bank, saying there was a recent transaction of S$3,566 under her credit card.
She did not recognise the card details provided by the caller, and was transferred to a “Wong Zeng Yi” who introduced himself as an officer from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The woman provided her personal particulars and financial and banking details. After this, another person called the victim claiming to be an investigator.
He said her bank accounts had been compromised and asked her to transfer the balance amounts to a temporary bank account to prevent further scams.
Within an hour of this call, the victim transferred S$145,983 to various bank accounts and gave her Internet banking passwords to the caller.
The victim later called various banks and realised she had been scammed.
Muliandy was later found to have been smoking methamphetamine from February 2025 to April 2025. He was nabbed by Central Narcotics Bureau officers on Apr 8, 2025.
“CRITICAL COMPONENT”
The prosecution sought a jail term of between three years and 17.5 months and three years and 22 months for Muliandy, along with a fine of S$550.
When a sentence combines months with more than four weeks, CNA reports the sentences as spelt out by the court, as a month can contain four or five weeks.
The prosecution said the offence of handing over bank accounts is serious and calls for a deterrent jail term, and that scams are a major and fast-growing concern.
“The number of reported scam cases has increased by more than sevenfold over the past five years, while the amounts lost to scams have quadrupled,” said the prosecutor.
A critical component allowing sophisticated organised criminal groups to commit scams is offenders based in Singapore, like Muliandy, who hand over control of their bank accounts to syndicate members, said the prosecutor.
