SINGAPORE: A 42-year-old man was jailed after being convicted of running two businesses which took more than S$1.25 million from victims but gave nothing in return, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said in a news release on Wednesday (Jul 3).
Mohamed Yasin Karuli ran both a bogus timeshare recovery business and an unauthorised collective investment scheme, the police said.
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As part of the timeshare recovery business, he promised owners of timeshare memberships that he could help them recover money from the termination of their memberships in return for certain fees.
Using a company called Solution One to run the scheme, he recruited staff and trained them to pitch sales to clients.
“The reality was that Mohamed Yasin knew that Solution One had no means to do any such thing for the timeshare owners,” the police said.
Between August 2013 and September 2015, 47 owners of timeshare memberships took up Mohamed Yasin’s offer. The victims ended up paying the company S$942,141.72 in fees and charges, but received nothing in return.
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Last Friday, Mohamed Yasin pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulent trading. Another person involved in running the company with Mohamed Yasin has been charged with the same offence and court proceedings are ongoing.
UNAUTHORISED COLLECTIVE INVESTMENT SCHEME
In another case between January 2015 and July 2015, Mohamed Yasin used his company Allied Solution Group to promote an investment scheme to finance the production of Tamil movies.
Through this, he managed to solicit S$315,237 from 18 investors, who were promised a return of 150 per cent of their investment and a percentage of the box office revenue. The scheme was unable to pay the investors as the ticket sales were poor, police said.
The investment scheme fell within the definition of a collective investment scheme, but had failed to meet requirements under the Securities and Futures Act. It was also not authorised or recognised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Mohamed Yasin pleaded guilty last Friday to 10 charges in relation to the collective investment scheme. Another 21 counts under each offence were also taken into consideration, police said.
Mohamed Yasin was sentenced to four years and two weeks’ imprisonment for his offences.
