Man admits duping 21 victims, including his father, of more than $3.8m

AI generated

SINGAPORE – A man who agreed to help the sole director of a frozen food company obtain loans ended up cheating 21 victims of more than $3.8 million in total.

Sebastian Lim Qian Ji’s victims included his own father and friends.

To avoid detection, Lim told the victims to either hand over cash or make bank transfers to various intermediaries, including his mother and his then girlfriend.

These intermediaries would then deliver the money to him.

Lim, 33, has since returned around $860,000 to some of his victims, bringing the total loss to about $2.9 million.

Deputy public prosecutors Jordy Kay and Chan Wayde stated in court documents: “These returns were not made out of remorse and were not voluntary restitution.

“Instead, these monies were returned so as to gain the trust of the victims so that the accused could continue to perpetuate his mass cheating.”

They added that Lim had also used his ill-gotten gains to gamble and pay the frozen food company’s creditors.

On Aug 19, he pleaded guilty to a traffic-related offence as well as eight counts of cheating, with each cheating charge involving up to $694,100.

Court documents stated that Gerald Lee Hai Rui, 32, was the sole director of a company called Geroy, which was facing financial woes in early 2021.

The prosecution said that Lee then sought Lim’s help to obtain loans from Lim’s friends to overcome these difficulties.

Lim agreed to help Lee and began cheating multiple victims between February 2021 and September 2022. Court documents did not disclose how the two men were linked to each other.

Lim cheated a married couple, who were his secondary school friends, of the largest amount – $694,100.

On at least six occasions between December 2021 and March 22, he lied to the 33-year-old pair, claiming that he was involved in projects linked to places including the Singapore Sports Hub.

Lim also claimed that these purported projects needed funding.

According to Lim, if the couple agreed to loan money to Geroy, they would get back the principal amount after a period of time

He claimed that the couple would also receive “attractive rates of return that far exceeded what the market offered”.

In reality, there were no such projects, said the DPPs.

Believing his lies, the couple handed $694,100 to Lim, who has since returned $226,500 to them.

In another case in early 2022, Lim lied to his 59-year-old father, claiming that he was involved in some “projects” that needed funding.

Similarly, he claimed that the older man would also receive “attractive rates of return” if the latter loaned money to Geroy, said the DPPs.

They added: “The accused’s father was not aware that the representations were false and proceeded to convey them to his three friends.

“All three of his friends believed the false representations and gave the accused’s father a total of $430,000 on multiple occasions.”

The father then handed the money to Lim.

Besides his father and the couple, Lim cheated multiple other victims.

Without disclosing details, the DPPs said that 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.

Despite this, he drove a car and got into an accident on Nov 17, 2024.

He was arrested 11 days later and has been in remand since then.

Lim will be sentenced on Aug 20.