Man, 34, steals S$54,000 from CPF account of bedridden friend, 62, while visiting her in hospital

A 34-year-old man accessed the CPF account of his bedridden friend and transferred a total of S$54,000 to himself over three occasions while visiting her in the hospital.

The 62-year-old female friend suffered from undisclosed medical issues, could not move or speak, and was permanently warded in Gleneagles Hospital.

The man, Yu Mingyan, was sentenced to 18 months and two weeks' jail and given a fine of S$30,000.

He will serve an extra month's jail if he cannot pay the fine.

Was close friends with victim

According to court documents seen by Mothership, Yu visited the victim at the hospital over three occasions in June and July 2023.

He was in debt at the time.

During the visits, Yu used the victim's phone to access her CPF account.

The two were former colleagues and close friends, so Yu was able to guess the password to her mobile phone and phone applications.

He then withdrew money from her CPF account to her bank account and immediately transferred the money to himself.

Yu withdrew S$30,000 on the first occasion, S$20,000 on the second, and S$4,000 on the third.

Forged police report when confronted

After noticing the transactions, the victim's niece questioned Yu.

Yu lied and denied knowledge about what happened.

When asked to repay the money, he claimed that he was unable to do so as he was also a victim of the supposed unauthorised transactions.

In October 2023, to support his lies, Yu used a real police report previously made by his mother and edited it to seem like he had filed a police report in August about the transactions.

He sent the forged report to the victim's niece to placate her.

In January 2024, Yu became uncontactable after the victim pressed him about what happened.

The victim's niece then made a police report about 10 months later in October 2024.

Helped loan shark with money transfers

Apart from stealing CPF money from his sickly friend, Yu got himself into other trouble.

In October 2023, Yu borrowed S$600 from an unlicensed moneylender but could not keep up with the repayment schedule.

In lieu of monetary repayment, Yu agreed to carry out other services in the form of facilitating bank transfers for the unlicensed moneylender.

He set up a new bank account to do so.

In November 2023, the 34-year-old made at least 16 bank transfers as part of this service.

This continued until the bank account was flagged by DBS as suspicious and was closed that same month.

In July 2024, Yu also stole S$197 from a petty cash box at Farrer Park Hospital, where he was working as a physiotherapist assistant at the time.

He left S$3 behind in the box.

After he was arrested, Yu told police he had stolen the money "out of habit".

No qualms: Judge

Yu faced six charges in total for stealing his friend's CPF money, helping an unlicensed moneylender with bank transfers, and taking petty cash from his employer.

He pleaded guilty to four of them, including two under the Computer Misuse Act.

The prosecution sought at least 16 months' imprisonment and a S$30,000 fine.

During the court proceedings, District Judge Eddy Tham told Yu that it was "highly egregious" of him to have taken from a friend who was suffering a worse state than he, CNA reported.

Tham added that Yu had "betrayed [his friend's] trust" instead of helping her, and had "no qualms" taking money she needed for her treatment, as well as committing forgery.

While Yu claimed that the victim had S$166,000 left in her account, the judge said that this was unverified.

The judge allowed Yu to defer his jail term to the end of the month to settle personal matters, CNA wrote.

Top image via Shin Min Daily News, Canva