A young man’s attempt to cash out his cryptocurrency savings resulted in his assault and near robbery in Singapore recently.
The Instagram page @sgfollowsall shared the 19-year-old’s cautionary tale, showing several screenshots of the conversations between him and the dealer, known as ‘Mister’.
The victim wanted to trade his cryptocurrency for US dollars with the man and arranged to meet in person on the Telegram application. The deal amounted to S$32,000 (RM106,618).
Both of them agreed to meet up at a shopping mall initially and do the exchange there but ‘Mister’ suggested on the day of the incident whether he could do the deal under his residence block but the young man was against it, citing safety issues.
“My instinct was telling me that its a robbery but I still decided to go with it because I just wanted to take the risk for that profit,” he said in the reel.
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On the day of their meeting, ‘Mister’ said he was seated at a parking area and the victim went to withdraw the allotted cash first.
As he was walking, he noticed two other men at a corner of a sidewalk but kept on walking and met up with the man at the same place after withdrawing the cash, who also insisted on settling the deal at the carpark instead of the mall, as opposed to their initial agreement. .
Both of them crossed the road to another sidewalk and the young man observed his surroundings, noticing the two men he walked past earlier headed towards him and ‘Mister’.
He was then punched on the left side of his face by one of the men.
The victim fled the scene but was tailed by the three men and eventually cornered near a bus stop, however, he managed to evade the trio and dashed for it while yelling that he was being robbed.
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Fortunately, he escaped and safely returned to his home with his cash still intact and lodged a police report later on the same day.
Channel News Asia reported that a 29-year-old man was linked to the near robbery and was charged for attempted robbery and hurt.
The man, Benedict Yee Hong Fai, who is also the man who approached the victim on Telegram, was found to have arranged the robbery and assault of the young man with the two other men.
The trio were arrested between Friday (Aug 30) and Sunday (Sept 3). The other two men are assisting the police in their investigations.
