{"id":89169,"date":"2026-09-30T22:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=89169"},"modified":"2026-09-30T22:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:09:17","slug":"7%c2%bd-years-jail-for-man-who-duped-his-father-and-other-victims-of-over-3-8m-to-help-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=89169","title":{"rendered":"7\u00bd years\u2019 jail for man who duped his father and other victims of over $3.8m to help friend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"text-primary article-summary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013 <!-- -->A man <!-- -->was sentenced to 7\u00bd years\u2019 jail on Sept 30 after he<a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/man-admits-duping-21-victims-including-his-father-of-more-than-3-8m?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"inline font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"typography-test-id\"> cheated 21 victims<\/span><\/a>, including his own father and friends, of more than $3.8 million in total.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Sebastian Lim Qian Ji, 33, committed the offences <!-- -->in order to help a friend who was facing financial problems with a frozen food business.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He had earlier pleaded guilty in August to eight counts of cheating and <!-- -->an unrelated traffic offence<!-- -->.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Twenty-six other charges were considered during his sentencing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The court heard in August that <!-- -->Lim <!-- -->had returned around $860,000 to some of his victims, bringing the total loss to about $2.9 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In earlier proceedings, deputy public prosecutors Jordy Kay and Chan Wayde told the court that Gerald Lee Hai Rui, 32,<!-- --> sought Lim\u2019s help to obtain loans from Lim\u2019s friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Lee was the sole director of a company called Geroy, which was facing financial woes in early 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">After agreeing to help Lee<!-- -->, Lim<!-- --> began cheating multiple victims between February 2021 and September 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In early 2022, Lim lied to his 59-year-old father, claiming that he was involved in some \u201cprojects\u201d that needed funding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He claimed that the older man would receive \u201cattractive rates of return\u201d if the latter loaned money to Geroy, said the DPPs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Unaware that the claim was false, Lim\u2019s father told three of his friends of the \u201copportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cAll three of his friends believed the false representations and gave the accused\u2019s father a total of $430,000 on multiple occasions,\u201d the DPPs said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The father<!-- --> then handed the money to Lim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Lim <!-- -->also cheated multiple other victims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">To avoid detection, <!-- -->he <!-- -->told the victims to either hand over cash or make bank transfers to various intermediaries, including his mother and his then girlfriend, <!-- -->who would then deliver the money to <!-- -->him<!-- -->.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Without disclosing details, the DPPs said that in an unrelated case, Lim was earlier convicted of drink driving and disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for two years from Dec 22, 2022, to Dec 21, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Despite this, he drove a car and got into an accident on Nov 17, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He was arrested 11 days later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On Sept 30, Lim was also disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for a period of four years from his release date.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/71-2-years-jail-for-man-who-duped-his-father-and-other-victims-of-over-3-8m-to-help-friend\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 A man was sentenced to 7\u00bd years\u2019 jail on Sept 30 after he cheated 21 victims, including his own father and friends, of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75803,"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-89169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89169","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=89169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}