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SINGAPORE: A Malaysian man posed as a Caucasian sugar daddy online, luring women from Singapore to Malaysia where he tricked them into sex acts and extorted one woman of more than S$183,000 (US$140,970).<\/p>\n
Rajwant Singh Gill Narajan Singh, 38, claimed trial but was convicted of four charges including cheating for sex and extortion.<\/p>\n
The prosecution on Thursday (Nov 27) sought 13 years\u2019 jail and 15 strokes of the cane for Singh, calling his conduct \u201chorrific and perverse\u201d.<\/p>\n
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin added that had Singh committed the acts in Singapore, he could have been charged with multiple counts of rape.<\/p>\n
To protect the identities of the victims of various offences – which number 16 across all charges he originally faced – details like their names, nationalities and occupations have been redacted from court papers.<\/p>\n
At the time of the offences between 2018 and 2020, Singh was unemployed and living in Malaysia with his wife and children.<\/p>\n
According to the prosecution, he came up with a scheme to obtain money and sexual gratification by deception.<\/p>\n
His general modus operandi was to pose as a white man on Tinder or other online dating platforms and propose a “sugar daddy” relationship with a victim, offering money for sex and companionship.<\/p>\n
He posed online as a successful man living on a yacht in Malaysia.<\/p>\n
When the victim agreed, he would have her send explicit photos or videos of herself before inviting her to Malaysia.<\/p>\n
Singh would meet the victim pretending to be the man’s driver, then use the sugar daddy’s persona to coerce her into sleeping with him.<\/p>\n
After this, Singh would threaten to disseminate the victim’s explicit footage if she did not transfer him money or provide other forms of gratification.<\/p>\n
Singh would pretend to befriend the victim using his driver persona and claim that he was also being threatened by the sugar daddy.<\/p>\n
This allowed him to communicate using a “good” and “bad” personality to assess whether to appeal to the victim on compassionate grounds or to threaten them.<\/p>\n
One victim matched with “Mike” on Tinder before late February 2020, before chatting with him on WhatsApp, where Mike offered US$30,000 per month for a sexual relationship.<\/p>\n
This required the victim going to Malaysia to have sex with Mike monthly and filming explicit media of herself in sex acts.<\/p>\n
The woman agreed because she was interested in a long-term relationship with Mike, who appeared to be a good-looking and successful man, and because the money offered far exceeded her own salary.<\/p>\n
The woman sent Mike videos of herself engaging in sex acts and flew to Penang on Feb 28, 2020, where she meant Singh, who was posing as Mike’s driver.<\/p>\n
Singh later posed as Mike and demanded the woman to have sex with Singh or he would disseminate the material.<\/p>\n
The woman testified that she performed other lewd acts to prevent dissemination on Mike’s instructions, including meeting other unknown men for sex.<\/p>\n
She was coerced into sex work and had her clients chosen for her, with her earnings going to Mike.<\/p>\n
The woman was extorted of a total sum of more than S$183,000. Mike never provided any payment to her.<\/p>\n
The woman finally lodged a police report in October 2020.<\/p>\n
Singh was eventually arrested in a joint covert operation by the Singapore Police Force and Royal Malaysian Police Force and charged in Singapore.<\/p>\n
He gave detailed confessions across 16 statements explaining how he carried out the crimes, saying he needed money for his family’s expenses and expressing remorse.<\/p>\n
However, at trial, he denied the charges and claimed he did have sex with the victims but was not the “sugar daddy”.<\/p>\n
Singh was unrepresented. He said nothing in mitigation, leaving the sentence to the court.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor, Mr Bin, said this case was “the very worst of its kind” and that Singh was “effectively a serial rapist”.<\/p>\n
He said his conduct was depraved, sadistic and malicious. The acts he forced the victims to do were “utterly debasing” and “disgusting”.<\/p>\n
One woman was flogged and whipped until she was badly wounded.<\/p>\n
Another had her life and career “derailed” while one victim could not be diagnosed as she was so traumatised she could not properly attend therapy, which triggered flashbacks.<\/p>\n
Mr Bin said the offences were committed in a particularly manipulative manner, with Singh purposefully making use of the inherent power disparity in a dominant-submissive sexual relationship and manipulating his victims into delaying reporting or realising they had been deceived.<\/p>\n
He claimed trial “to the bitter end” and attempted to elicit “wholly irrelevant and scandalous details” of the victims’ sex lives, making claims against police officers and the prosecution.<\/p>\n
“He has blamed every single person but himself,” said Mr Bin.<\/p>\n
The judge adjourned sentencing to January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n