65-year-old Young Tat Ong, pleaded guilty on Thursday to one charge of engaging in a conspiracy to use counterfeit currency as real money.
He had agreed to help a Vietnamese man exchange Singapore $10,000 notes for smaller denominations, in exchange for a commission.
He suspected that the notes from the man, who claimed to be a high-ranking government official, were fake, but still tried to deposit three of the notes into his corporate bank account.
A suitability report to assess whether Young is suitable for preventive detention was called by the judge, and is usually given to re-offenders.
Young had been convicted 7 times since he was 16 years old for crimes such as cheating and forgery.
What happened
Young met the Vietnamese man Dinh Dai Quang through an online acquaintance, and the latter told him that he was a Vietnamese government official with access to Singapore $10,000 notes that belonged to his government, and was being stored in a warehouse.
Dinh told Young that the notes were “payments” from the Singapore Government to Vietnam, asking him to help exchange the money for smaller denominations and promised to pay him $4,000 for each $10,000 note that he changed as commission.
Young suspected the notes were fake because the colours of the notes that Dinh sent him on Whatsapp were different from the genuine $10,000 notes that he had seen before.
The two then met up on 21 March earlier this year at Changi Airport and Dinh passed Young 2 pieces of the $10,000 notes.
Young noticed that the notes had appeared “dull” but still brought them home, before heading to a DBS bank outlet the next day and trying to deposit $31,000 of 3 fake $10,000 notes and a genuine $1,000 note.
The bank teller sensed that something was wrong because the $10,000 notes felt different from the genuine ones, and she then informed her superiors to inspect the notes.
A branch service manager then found that the texture on the fake notes were different, with the security thread lines being blue instead of silver.
The watermark images of Yusof Ishak was also not distinct, and the serial number of the fake notes were also golden brown instead of brown and black.
The police were then alerted and the two men were then arrested on the spot.