SINGAPORE, April 21 — An Italian man has been sentenced to seven months in jail for an “impossible” crime after he attempted to cheat a Singaporean watch dealer by selling a rare Rolex he believed was fake, only for it to be later confirmed as genuine.

Deepak Singh, 24, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of attempting to cheat. The court found that even though the Rolex GMT Saru timepiece was authentic, Singh’s clear intention to deceive was sufficient to constitute a crime, CNA reported.

The bizarre case concluded with Singh being jailed for trying to pull off a scam that, due to facts unknown to him, could never have succeeded.

The court heard that Singh’s ordeal began in early 2025 when he bought the Rolex from an acquaintance for €55,000 euros (RM255,000) and a Cartier bracelet.

Believing the watch was worth €90,000 on the resale market, he thought he had secured a significant profit.

However, after friends warned him that there were only about 20 authentic pieces of the watch in circulation, Singh sought a second opinion.

A watch shop suggested the case might have been swapped and a serial number laser-engraved onto it. Convinced he had been scammed with a counterfeit, Singh decided to offload the “fake” watch.

On November 27, 2025, Singh flew to Singapore with the intention of selling the watch and using the proceeds to buy other luxury timepieces to resell in Europe.

The next day, he entered The Watch Room, a shop in a Bencoolen mall, and offered the Rolex to the director for S$94,700 (RM331,000). Instead of cash, Singh requested a trade for three other Rolexes: a Daytona, a GMT, and a Submariner.

To complete the transaction and conceal his identity, Singh provided a forged soft copy of his passport with an altered name and passport number.

Throughout the deal, he was under the firm belief that he was cheating the shop owner with a fake watch.

An ‘impossible’ crime

The story took another twist after Singh left. The shop director, after consulting with neighbouring retailers, also became convinced the watch was a fake due to the laser-engraved serial number. He reported the matter to the police.

Meanwhile, Singh ignored the director’s calls and booked a late-night flight to Rome to evade arrest.

He was detained at Changi Airport shortly before departure.

The final, definitive twist came when the police sent the watch to the official Rolex Service Centre. A technician certified that every part of the timepiece was authentic and original.

The prosecution argued this was a classic case of an “impossible attempt,” where a person takes all necessary steps to commit a crime, but the offence cannot be completed due to a physical impossibility. In this case, the fact that the watch was genuine.

“This was not a case where the accused had voluntarily desisted from cheating... rather, this was an accused who followed through with his attempt to cheat the victim to completion,” argued the prosecutor, who sought a 12-month sentence.

Singh’s defence lawyers argued for a six-month sentence, stressing that no actual financial loss was caused.

They described Singh as a “good-natured young man” from a working-class immigrant family in Italy, and that this was his first brush with the law. They highlighted the hardship his detention in Singapore was causing his parents, a housekeeper and a cook, who could not afford to visit him.

For attempting to cheat, Singh could have been jailed for up to three years and fined.