Scam mastermind back in jail for duping victims into handing him over $7m
Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
Oct 30, 2025
A man who was given a jail sentence in 2022 for forgery will be spending more time behind bars for duping multiple victims into delivering to him more than $7 million.
For his current offence, Alvin Koo Jing You masterminded an investment scam and managed to pay the victims nearly $6 million in total as purported returns.
His scheme eventually unravelled when he failed to pay the "returns" on time, and the victims suffered losses of more than $1 million.
On Oct 30, the 39-year-old Singaporean, who made restitution of $1,000 to one of the victims, was sentenced to seven years' jail.
He pleaded guilty to a cheating charge involving nine victims and more than $7 million.
Another charge linked to four victims and another $238,000 was considered during his sentencing.
Without revealing details, Deputy Public Prosecutor Natalie Chu said Koo used to work as an insurance agent, but his employment was terminated in early 2019 after he was investigated for selling bogus policies to clients.
He was charged with forgery later that year and released on bail.
Facing financial pressure, he hatched an investment scheme to solicit funds from his family members, friends and other individuals.
The court heard that he cheated the nine victims between October 2019 and December 2021.
As part of his plan, Koo claimed he had a trading account with an investment platform called iFast Financial, allowing him to purchase investment units at a discounted rate, and typically with guaranteed high interest rates of 10 per cent to 20 per cent.
He then invited various people to hand him money so he could "purchase units in investment funds on their behalf".
After receiving their transfers, he drafted and sent to them letters of agreement stating, among other things, the amount of capital invested.
DPP Chu told the court: "The accused knew that his representations were false, as he did not have any trading account with iFast.
"Instead, he had intended to use part of their monies for his own and his family's expenses, and invest the remaining in stocks and shares via an investment platform known as Tiger Brokers."
The prosecutor said that initially, Koo's investments via Tiger Brokers were profitable, and he was able to distribute returns to his investors, who agreed to transfer more sums to him.
His investor base expanded through word of mouth, and he started operating what the DPP described as a "Ponzi-like" scheme, in which new investments were used to pay returns to earlier investors.
Koo also encouraged the investors to re-invest their supposed returns, allowing him to avoid paying out actual dividends to them.
However, he began suffering investment losses and could not pay his investors on time.
They later found out about his ruse and alerted the police.
Separately, Koo perpetrated another scam to obtain funds from four people between October and December 2021.
This time, he lied to them, claiming that he would be using their money for "day trades".
These four victims transferred $238,000 in total to him, and he later paid them nearly $54,000 as purported investment returns.
They suffered more than $180,000 in losses, the court heard.
In February 2022, Koo made a police report and came clean about what he had done.
He was sentenced to two years and eight months' jail four months later after he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of forgery.
For his current case, he was arrested on June 25, 2024, and was produced in court the next day.
