SINGAPORE, April 10 — For over two years, a Singapore Grab driver ran a side gig as a loan shark runner who compiled and sold the personal details of potential debtors to unlicensed moneylenders.
Yesterday, Ho Mian Quan was sentenced to 36 months in jail and a S$900,000 (RM2.7 million) fine for his crimes.
Between 2015 and 2017, Ho, 38, purchased the information of some 329,000 potential borrowers from online sources while posing as an unlicensed moneylender.
He made the purchases from a contact who obtained the information from licensed moneylenders and sold it to unlicensed moneylenders via email.
The information that Ho received included the name of licensed moneylenders and their customer databases. The data included the customers’ names, NRIC numbers, addresses and mobile numbers.
He would then reach out to loan sharks, such as those he had previously taken loans from, or those who had sent him loan advertisements via Whatsapp, to sell them the information. He sold the details to a total of 98 unlicensed moneylenders.
For his actions, as well as for engaging in other unlicensed moneylending activities, Ho was slapped with 518 charges under the Moneylenders Act.
He pleaded guilty to 30 of the charges, with the rest taken into consideration for sentencing.
In calling for the sentence, Deputy Public Prosecutor Charleston Teo cited the rise in scams of unlicensed money lenders approaching potential borrowers through new technology such as Whatsapp.
Ho began work as a runner sometime in 2016 after being unable to return a S$5,000 loan that he took from a loan shark back in 2014. As a runner, he helped loan sharks to receive illegal loan repayments and issue loans via bank transfers.
He would also hand over cash to the couriers of unlicensed moneylenders to be brought out of Singapore.
Ho was eventually caught on March 2017 in Jurong West during a police sting. He was found with five Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards and S$970 cash, which he had withdrawn from various ATMs around the island on behalf of an unlicensed moneylender. — TODAY
