SINGAPORE – Taking instructions from a man who handed him three Japanese bank cards, a Thailand-based Chinese national travelled to Singapore in January 2025 and used them to buy luxury goods worth over $100,000.
Liu Hesheng, 50, bought items including two Rolex watches, bags from Chanel and Prada as well as a Cartier bracelet, despite knowing that the cards had been tampered with.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Yeo Kee Hwan said Liu was motivated by greed, adding: “It had been intimated to him that he could accrue gains by making these purchases.”
The offender, who was arrested at Changi Airport when he tried to re-enter Singapore in February 2025, was sentenced to five years and four months’ jail on May 8.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of cheating.
Court documents stated that the tampered bank cards had embedded chips that originally came from stolen American Express (Amex) cards.
The original Amex cards were taken from Yunomori Onsen in Pattaya, Thailand when the rightful card members visited the establishment between Jan 13 and 17, 2025.
An unidentified individual swopped the chips on the Amex cards with those obtained from other stolen cards.
Liu had a massage parlour in Thailand and got to know a man, known only as “Boss Huang”, who became a regular customer.
Boss Huang handed Liu the three Japanese bank cards so that the latter could use them to buy luxury goods in Singapore on his behalf.
DPP Yeo said: “(Liu) was given the names of the individuals that he should use for the signing of receipts for purchases he made with these cards, and eventually, the doctored identity document he needed to substantiate his false identity when proof was required of him during a transaction.
“Hence, the accused did not know whom these cards belonged to but suspected that they were stolen.”
Liu arrived in Singapore on Jan 18, 2025 and started his shopping spree the next day.
He went to multiple shops, bought luxury goods worth more than $100,000 and left Singapore via Changi Airport on Jan 21 that year.
He retained possession of the items and began wearing one of the Rolex watches as he liked it.
On Jan 23, 2025, an owner of one of the shops lodged a police report, saying that according to Amex, a fraudulent transaction had taken place there.
The owners of two other stores lodged similar reports soon after and a police gazette was issued against Liu for his arrest.
On Feb 10, 2025, he tried to re-enter Singapore and was arrested.
The Rolex watch he wore and five cards were seized from him. Three were credit or debit cards that did not belong to him.
They also showed signs of tampering, suggesting that a similar chip-swopping procedure had been performed on them.
Liu provided multiple contradictory accounts about the preparatory acts leading up to his charges, the court heard.
The facts in contention pertained to whether he had personally tampered with the credit cards, or whether he had acted on the instructions of a third party.
At one point, he purposefully misled the police by claiming to have acted alone in tampering with the cards to conceal the involvement of other parties and avoid allegations of syndicate involvement.
According to court documents, he had done so with the hope of receiving a more lenient sentence.
But the midst of court proceedings, he changed his mind and implicated Boss Huang.
DPP Yeo said: “(Liu) then claimed that he did not have the know-how necessary to tamper with the cards despite having provided the police with highly technical information on when point-of-sales machines will allow a transaction to go through without a (personal identification number) and the general usage of magnetic stripes on cards.
“As a result, the police and the prosecution… expended significant resources to discern the facts (about the case).”
All the items Liu bought in January 2025 by using the tampered cards have since been recovered.