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Jun 2, 2011
Man gets 4 years for cheating ex-colleague of $126k
By Elena Chong
OVER 20 months, Muhammad Aidil Mohammed Salleh conned his former colleague of about $126,000. The 25-year-old assumed the identities of 18 fictitious law enforcement officers and public servants to cheat auxiliary police officer Mohammad Shaiffudin Hj Mohd Amin, 46, on 239 occasions.
Muhammad Aidil came to know the victim while they were working together at Certis Cisco in 2008. Aidil was sacked that year after he was charged and convicted of stealing while on duty.
A district court heard that before his current offences between mid-2009 and February this year, Aidil had taken money from the victim on many occasions, and continued to do so after he came out of prison. When Aidil observed that the victim never questioned the truth of his familial circumstances, he realised that he could prey on the victim's gullibility.
Deputy public prosecutor Paul Wong Chun Yi said Aidil became greedy and wanted more money out of the victim. He devised a scam to cheat the victim of much larger sums by deceiving him into believing that he had gotten into trouble with the law and was about to be charged.
Aidil, unemployed, spent all the money he cheated on gambling and repay his gambling debts.
Sentencing him to 48 months jail on Thursday on 20 charges, District Judge Eddy Tham chastised him for returning evil for good. He said Aidil had manipulated the victim without any conscience at all and 'caused him to not just lose the entire savings he had... he had to sell his flat and now his whole family is suffering, and all because of your addiction to gambling.'
