To lessen her financial burden, she searched online for another money lending service and came across a website abicredit.com — a scam site disguised to resemble an actual registered money lender, ABI Credit, which operated abicredit.sg.
On Oct 12, 2020, Nurashikeen contacted a WhatsApp number listed on the scam site asking for a S$25,000 loan and was told to pay an “administrative fee” of S$2,500.
She did as instructed but did not receive the loan in her bank account.
The next day, someone else from abicredit.com told her she needed to pay a “collateral fee” of S$2,500 in order to secure the loan and was told that these fees would be returned to her with the loan.
She was told later the same day that she had to pay a further “administrative fee” of S$5,000 and was promised the loan amount by the end of the day.
THE EMBEZZLEMENT
Desperate, she took S$5,400 from the bank branch, placed it in an envelope and deposited the sum into her personal POSB Bank account.
However, after transferring S$5,000 to the scammers, the loan was still not disbursed to her account.
For about a month, the scammers continued asking for more fees every day to be paid into various accounts from different banks.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Benjamin Samynathan said that at times, the scammers sent her documents purportedly by DBS Bank, the Internal Security Department and other organisations stating that more fees were needed.
“Given the monies that she had sunk into the…
