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SINGAPORE \u2013 A man joined a Cambodian scam syndicate in 2024, but was fired within three days after failing to cheat any Singaporeans.<\/p>\n
He was arrested when police conducted an operation against the syndicate<\/span><\/a> in September 2025.<\/p>\n On June 26, Yip Chee Ming, 30, a Malaysian, was sentenced to 16 months and two weeks\u2019 jail, after pleading guilty to one count of being a member of an organised crime syndicate.<\/p>\n Another charge, for cheating, was taken into consideration during sentencing.<\/p>\n The court heard that Yip found out about the scam caller job from a friend, identified in court documents as Jason, in October 2024.<\/p>\n The scam syndicate, which was based in Phnom Penh, conducted government official impersonation scams to cheat Singaporeans.<\/p>\n Between Sept 3, 2024, and Sept 5, 2025, the group was believed to have been involved in at least 528 reported scam cases, with victims losing about $52.5 million.<\/p>\n The court heard that the syndicate\u2019s leadership was responsible for the criminal operations and paying commissions to callers like Yip.<\/p>\n The next levels of the syndicate were the supervisors and trainers, who oversaw the callers.<\/p>\n The trainers would provide the callers with scripts to read and tips on how to be more convincing, such as speaking with a Singaporean accent.<\/p>\n There was also a group of money launderers within the syndicate, who converted scam proceeds into cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n The court heard there were at least 78 suspected members within the syndicate.<\/p>\n Jason told Yip he was interested in joining the scam centre, but did not want to do so alone. He asked Yip to join him, and Yip agreed.<\/p>\n Both were added to a Telegram group by Tang Soon Wah, who was identified as one of the scam syndicate\u2019s leaders.<\/p>\n Tang offered to fly them to Cambodia to view the scam compound, which was a five-storey building.<\/p>\n Security guards were stationed outside the compound.<\/p>\n Yip and Jason returned to Malaysia to consider the job offer and flew to Cambodia on Nov 21, 2024.<\/p>\n Yip started work on Nov 22, 2024, pretending to be a bank officer to cheat Singaporeans.<\/p>\n He was promised US$1,800 (S$2,330) a month in cryptocurrency, and a 1 per cent commission from victims he duped.<\/p>\n But Yip was an abject failure at the job.<\/p>\n Despite following the script provided by the syndicate, he could not cheat anyone.<\/p>\n He tried again the next day and failed again.<\/p>\n On Nov 23, 2024, Tang fired Yip, after deleting their messages. Court documents did not state how Yip returned to Malaysia.<\/p>\n He was arrested in Singapore on Sept 9, 2025, and was one of the 12 people charged as alleged members of the syndicate<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Nine of them are Singaporeans: Deon Tan Ke Yuan, 25; Lester Ng Jing Hai, 29; Christy Neo Wei En, 29; Heiqal Lee, 30; Tay Jun Xiang, 32; Ng Wei Kang, 33; Zachary Lee Jia An, 35; Melvin Tan Wenzheng, 35; and Lau Haoxiang, 39.<\/p>\n The remaining two are Malaysian Muhamad Asyraf Anuar, 29, and Filipina De Villar Rizalyn Panganiban, 34.<\/p>\n They were arrested on Sept 9, 2025, during a joint operation by the police and the Cambodian National Police.<\/p>\n Despite the overall drop in scam cases in 2025, the number of government official impersonation scam cases more than doubled<\/span><\/a> from 1,504 in 2024 to 3,363 in 2025.<\/p>\n It was the fifth most common scam type in 2025.<\/p>\n For being part of an organised crime group, an offender can be fined up to $100,000, jailed for up to five years, or both.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 A man joined a Cambodian scam syndicate in 2024, but was fired within three days after failing to cheat any Singaporeans. He was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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