AFTER an attempted kidnapping and extortion gone wrong, a man was recently arrested in Singapore and his friend was placed in jail.
The worst part of the kidnapping? The man’s mother was the intended target.
Court records obtained by Zao Bao state that the man, whose name is Chen Zixiang, initially connected with Jaivin s/o Uthirapathy 10 years ago through a poker forum.
At the invitation of Zixiang, Jaivin asked a different friend, Chen Shijie (transliteration), on Jan 5, 2023, if they could play poker at his condo the following day.
Zixiang’s plan called for him to get in touch with his mother, tell her he was a scammer, and then fabricate a story about how his “victims” had kidnapped him and would only release him if she paid a ransom.
Although, before calling his mother on Jan 7 and instructing her to transfer the money, Zixiang purposedly injured his left arm with a plastic chair in order to allay any suspicions on her part. In addition, he sent her photos of his wounds.
Zixiang further hurt his left arm with a heavy object, causing it to swell to make it look real.
Then, in order to get Shijie and Jaivin to act like his kidnappers and convince his mother that they were at the end of their patience, he gave them instructions to pretend to be his kidnappers in order to get her to send the money right away.
Later on, Zixiang lowered the ransom to S$20,000, or roughly RM69,700, but she only made a S$1,000 (or roughly RM3,400) bank transfer.
Zixiang’s plan was foiled when he discovered that his mother had called the police regarding the incident. So you can imagine his surprise when he saw the police at his doorstep!
In the end, Jaivin was sentenced to seven weeks in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to cheat and mischief yesterday. He was later taken into custody on the 26th of October.
