He cheated close to 50 people into believing he could find them jobs at the SEA Games.
The reward – S$1600 in loot.
But crime didn’t pay for Karim Mat Amin.
The long arm of the law caught up with him and he pleaded guilty today to 15 charges of cheating and 1 count of theft.
He was sentenced to 9 years preventive detention.
Another 32 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Having just been freed from a 12-year corrective training stint earlier this year, Karim decided crime was his forte after all.
So he put up false advertisements stating that he was looking to hire people for part-time jobs during the SEA Games.
Karim posed as a human resources officer from recruitment firm Just Recruit.
He told interested applicants that they would be paid S$900 to work 12-hours a day between 5 Jun and 11 Jun.
To land the job, applicants had to pay for a S$35 3-day training course, uniforms and a commemorative EZ-Link card.
Karim dressed up in proper business attire and recorded their particulars in a notebook, so the victims hardly smelled anything amiss.
He would even send the applicants “reminder” SMS messages telling them they would be struck off the list if they didn’t pay.
On 17 May, Karim started a Whatsapp chat group, included about 50 applicants and informed them not to be late for the first day of training.
He told them to meet at the office of the recruitment firm, but never showed up.
Instead, he was busy breaking into his former workplace – the Mad Jack restaurant at Parkway Parade.
He stole an iPad and S$150 in cash from the tips jar.
In his defence, Karim’s lawyer said he had been under immense financial pressure.
But the judge dismissed that, and said that Karim was not remorseful about his crimes.
And so, it’s 9 years of preventive detention for the SEA Games scammer and die-hard criminal, in order to put him off re-offending.
