A Singaporean man violated the trust of a sickly friend whom he was close with by secretly siphoning a total of S$54,000 (approx. RM177,000) from her Central Provident Fund (CPF) account while visiting her at the hospital.
He even forged a police report to cover his tracks but was eventually exposed and charged in court for his crimes.
SG man steals RM177K in retirement funds from bedridden friend
According to CNA, Yu Mingyan was a friend and former colleague of the 62-year-old victim who was permanently warded in Gleneagles Hospital and couldn’t move or speak.
Court documents showed that Yu visited her on three separate occasions in June and July 2023. It also noted that Yu was struggling with debts at the time.
During the visits, Yu accessed into the victim’s CPF account as he correctly guessed the password to her phone and mobile applications.
As such, he was able to withdraw S$30,000 (approx. RM98,500) on the first occasion, S$20,000 (approx. RM65,600) on the second, and S$4,000 (approx. RM13,100) on the third.
Faked police report
When the victim’s niece saw the funds being withdrawn from her aunt’s CPF account, she confronted Yu, who feigned ignorance over it.
He said that he was unable to repay the money, claiming he was also a victim of the alleged unauthorised transactions.
To make his claims look plausible, Yu forged a police report to make it look like he had filed it in August 2023 about the transactions before sending it to the victim’s niece in October 2023.
In January 2024, the victim’s niece tried contacting Yu but he went under the radar, prompting her to lodge a police report in October 2024.
Was in cahoots with loan sharks
Aside from stealing from his friend, Yu was also involved in shady businesses with loan sharks in order to repay his debts.
Back in October 2023, Yu borrowed S$600 (approx. RM1,970) from a loan shark but fell behind the repayment schedule.
He then agreed to help make bank transfers for the loan sharks in proxy of monetary repayment and created a new bank account to do so.
In November 2023, Yu made 16 bank transfers before the account got flagged and shut down by DBS for suspicious transactions.
Yu was also exposed for stealing S$197 (approx. RM646) from a petty cash box at Farrer Park Hospital while working as a physiotherapist assistant in July 2024.
Upon his arrest, he told police that the theft was “out of habit”.
Jailed & fined
Yu was slapped with six charges for stealing his friend’s CPF money, aiding a loan shark with bank transfers, and taking petty cash from his employer. He pleaded guilty to four of them, two of which fell under the Computer Misuse Act.
When asked by the judge whether he was going to repay his friend the money, Yu said he wasn’t able to do so as most of his earnings went to his family.
Yu was sentenced to 18 months and two weeks in prison and fined S$30,000, where he will served another month in jail if he couldn’t pay the fine.
He was also verbally dressed down by the judge, who rapped him for his “highly egregious” crime which saw him taking advantage of his bedridden friend.
Instead of helping your friend, you have betrayed her trust by helping yourself to her CPF monies to alleviate your own problems.”
The judge also slammed Yu for having “no qualms” in stealing money needed for the victim’s care and resorting to forgery to cover his tracks.
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