S'porean man, 18, pleads guilty to cheating & extortion after pretending to be girl on Instagram & getting classmate to perform lewd acts

An 18-year-old man pleaded guilty to one charge of cheating and another of extortion in court on Oct. 23.

According to court documents seen by Mothership, the accused, who was 16 at the time, had created a fake Instagram account to deceive his secondary school classmate into performing indecent acts for him, which he later recorded and used to extort him.

Another charge of cheating and distributing intimate images and recordings was taken into consideration for sentencing.

The man will be sentenced on Jan. 12, 2026.

Both the victim and the accused cannot be named due to a gag order.

Created an account under the name "Bella"

In February 2023, the accused created a fake Instagram account under the name "Bella" and used it to contact the victim, The Straits Times reported.

The accused had deliberately chosen a female name to convince his classmate that he was interacting with a girl.

To make the deception more convincing, he downloaded suggestive photos of girls from the Internet, which did not include facial features, and sent them to the victim.

The two subsequently exchanged messages about sexual fantasies, and the victim was misled into believing that they were in a romantic relationship.

Recorded their video calls

During subsequent video calls, only the victim's camera was turned on.

The accused instructed the victim to perform lewd acts and expose himself while recording the footage.

He later sent the recordings to his friend, identified in court documents as "W1", who was aware of the deception.

Between February and December 2023, the accused continued to manipulate the victim into performing various acts:

Soaking his penis into a bowl of chilli oil for two minutes.

• Rub salt onto his penis.
• Drink his own urine.
• Masturbate in front of a camera.
• Send the accused iTunes gift cards and cash amounting to a total value of $390.
• Play football naked.
• Cut and burn his hair with a lighter.
• To continuously eat butter and cheese from his fridge even though the victim said that he could no longer swallow more.

Threatened to circulate the videos

In July 2023, the accused began extorting money from the victim by threatening to circulate the videos he had recorded.

Using the account created, he demanded a sum of money from the victim and warned that if he failed to comply, the videos would be shared.

Out of fear, the victim gave money to the accused by hiding S$100 in cash in a book at the Popular bookstore in Tampines Mall, as per the accused's instructions.

W1, who knew the victim was being coerced, agreed to participate in the extortion scheme and later received S$20 as his share of the profits.

Between July and December 2023, the accused repeated the same method five times, extorting a total of S$2,450 from the victim.

Throughout this period, the victim continued to believe he was giving money to "Bella", unaware that his classmate was behind the account.

Victim later lodged a police report

The victim lodged a police report on Jun. 8, 2024, reporting the extortion.

The accused was subsequently arrested two days later on Jun. 10, 2024, and was released on bail the same day.

According to ST, on Oct. 23, a probation and reformative training report was called for the accused, who was remanded.

For cheating, an offender can be jailed for a maximum of three years, fined, or both.

For extortion, an offender can be failed for a maximum of 10 years and fined.

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