A 37-year-old man was convicted on Wednesday after a Singaporean court heard he posed as a female gynecologist and duped 35 women into sending him photos and videos of their breasts and vaginas. The same day, another man was convicted of similar charges after a Singaporean court heard he posed as a “lingerie consultant” to dupe women into sending him photos and videos of themselves posing in underwear.
Ooi Chuen Wei, a Malaysian man living in Singapore, posed as Dr Janice Lee Yan Hooi, a supposed gynecologist from Gleneagles Medical Centre, by creating fake social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Between 2018 and 2021, the fraudster used these accounts to contact potential victims, claiming that he wanted to share a medical plan relating to their breasts and vagina, and asking them to join a campaign to “raise awareness for women’s health.”
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The court heard that after making contact, Ooi would ask his victims to fill out a self-monitoring survey, with questions about their breasts, vaginas, and sex lives, and then further catfish those who responded by sending them reports about medical care and sample photos of breasts and vaginas. Eventually, he instructed his victims on how to perform massages on their genitals and asked for before-and-after pictures and videos. This, he claimed, was for the purpose of suggesting treatment.
Things started to unravel for Ooi when one of his victims became suspicious and discovered that there was in fact no gynecologist named Dr Janice at Gleneagles.
She reported him to the police, who then raided Ooi’s home, seized his devices, and arrested him on Nov. 11, 2021—by which time he had accrued at least 919 photos and videos from victims. One woman sent him 46 photos and 12 videos of her breasts and vagina over 24 occasions. He was sentenced to 40 months’ jail after pleading guilty to six charges of “cheating by personation.”
That same day, at another court in Singapore, another man pleaded guilty to strikingly similar charges after it was heard that he, under the guise of a “lingerie consultant,” duped three women into sending him sexually explicit photos and videos.
Muhammad Nazri Sapar, 32, posed as Shahirah Malek, a lingerie consultant, and posted an advertisement on Facebook seeking a personal assistant with a starting pay of $2,500 SGD. Nazri asked applicants to send him photographs and videos of themselves in underwear as part of the selection process. Like Ooi, he too claimed to be an expert in women’s health.
The court heard that between September 2017 and January 2018, one woman, aged 21 at the time, was tricked into sending him 59 videos and 87 photos. In April 2018, two other women, both aged 22, contacted him about the job and were similarly misled.
Nazri’s offences did not end there, though. The court also heard that years earlier, starting in 2014, he lured a woman into becoming a sex worker—then threatened to inform her family if she didn’t give in to his demands.
Using a fake Facebook profile, Nazri, who was married at the time of both offences, approached his then-19-year-old victim in November 2014. After she confided in him that she was in debt and needed money, he suggested that she become a sex worker, and told her that another woman by the name of Nurul Huda would contact her. Nazri posed as Huda using another fake Facebook profile, and introduced the victim to a messaging group where he informed other members that they could contact the teen for sex.
Over the course of five months, between November 2014 and April 2015, the victim provided sexual services to 20 clients. Nazri let her keep her earnings, the court heard, but he also made her send him photos and videos of the encounters.
When the victim found another job in April 2015, Nazri threatened to tell her family about her sex work and post the explicit photos online unless she met his demands, which included becoming his mistress. The victim lodged a police report in April 2017, and Nazri was arrested on May 30, 2018. He had continued sending her threatening emails up until that month.
On Wednesday, Nazri pleaded guilty to 15 charges, including cheating by personation and criminal intimidation. He is expected to be sentenced on Nov. 16.
Singapore is no stranger to stories of this nature. Within the past 18 months, there have been numerous reported cases of people catfishing in order to solicit nude photos or sex.
In September 2021, a court heard that a 25-year-old Singaporean man used a fake Tinder profile to pose as a Caucasian, duping multiple women into sending him nude pictures and then threatening to leak them when they rejected his requests for sexual favours. Then, in November, a court heard that a Singaporean man used Facebook to pose as a spiritual medium and convince underage girls to send nude photos and videos of themselves on the pretext of performing exorcisms.
Weeks later, a court heard that a man posed as an agent for wealthy “sugar daddies” and duped 11 women, aged 18 to 24, into having sex with him by claiming he was “testing” them to be high-paid escorts. Another court heard a case in April about a 25-year-old man who contacted girls on Instagram under the guise of a woman named “Audrey Tay,” offering them fake jobs as influencers and asking them to conduct home photoshoots that in several cases involved nude or revealing photos.
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