Dinesh and Venish fall victim to a (made-in-Singapore?) recruitment scam

This is an AI-generated image. Any likeness to any real person is unintended.

On 12 July 2024, a message came to us from a Tamil-speaking person (whom we will call Govind) asking for help to track down another person alleged to be a job agent. Govind said that this alleged agent Karuppiah sent In-Principle Approval letters to two men in India, which appeared to be fake. The two workers had paid considerable sums of money. Was there any way we could help?

It didn’t seem likely to be the kind of problem TWC2 would have any means to help with, but as a first step, we needed to verify the story from the two workers themselves. It wasn’t clear to us where Govind fit into this, since he was not a victim himself.

We managed to reach the two men in India, whom we will call Dinesh and Venish, and step by step, we pieced the story together. Whilst the men were primarily interested in getting their money back – not much TWC2 could do there – we were equally appalled by how easy it was for scammers to use the IPA document for ignoble ends.

Towards the end of this post, we will suggest a way to close this gap in the system.

The IPA document and the process

How the system on the Singapore side is supposed to work is as follows:

From the origin country-based worker’s point of view, the “system” looks very different:

Mostly, the job-fixer works directly with the employer. If the employer also has a Singapore-based authorised agent, the job-fixer may need to coordinate with the agent over logistical details, or may still be working directly with the employer (who may then give instructions to his authorised agent).

Regardless, it has become widely known amongst workers in countries of origin that “proof” of a job is the IPA document. Unfortunately, nowadays it is hardly difficult to create fake copies of documents, especially when MOM issues them in PDF format. It’s not as if the IPA comes out in the form of a physical document complete with hologram to prove its authenticity. It is the ease by which fake PDF documents are generated that seems to have been at the root of this case.

In a recent story we wrote about how a Chinese worker’s IPA was altered. See: IPA tampering permit misrepresentation during recruitment. This story here is even more alarming; here the IPAs are completely fake.

Suspicions raised

Both men had worked in Singapore before, but had since gone back to India. At some point while they were back home, one of Dinesh’s contacts in Singapore told him about a man named Karuppiah, who could, it was said, find him a new job. Dinesh told his relative Venish, and both men reached out to Karuppiah.

On Karuppiah’s instruction, Dinesh transferred 150,000 Indian rupees (about S$2,300) to an Indian bank account belonging to a lady called Nagarani. Venish too was asked to transfer 100,000 Indian rupees (about S$1,500) to Nagarani’s account. We do not know why the asked-for amounts were different, nor what the relationship between Karuppiah and Nagarani was, though from our experience with other similar cases, there was likely to be a familial or matrimonial relationship between Karuppiah and Nagarani.

Nothing happened for several weeks despite Dinesh asking Karuppiah for news. Eventually, both men received their IPAs, portions of which are imaged below. The men then waited for their flight tickets, but none came.

The fake IPA given to Dinesh

Naturally, the men tried to reach Karuppiah again regarding flights, but the latter soon became unresponsive. At a loss, with money already paid up, the men asked around and managed to find Govind – the one who ultimately contacted TWC2. By the time Govind contacted us, he had already taught the two men how to use MOM’s online “Check a work pass” service. It is simple; a worker simply has to key in his date of birth and either his passport number or his FIN number. If there is an IPA or work pass linked to the person, an expiry date will be shown.

To Dinesh’s and Venish’s horror, there was no record of the so-called IPAs in MOM’s system when they performed this check. Their worst fears were coming true.

The fake IPA given to Venish

We also noticed something else that was suspicious when we looked at Venish’s document. He had worked in Singapore before, he said, and thus he would have been issued with a FIN number. Yet the purported IPA with his name did not contain the FIN number (Dinesh’s document had his FIN number on it).

In subsequent conversations with Govind and the two workers, they passed us Karuppiah’s phone number. It was a Singapore number. Govind was of the view that Karuppiah was a Work Permit holder himself, though we have no way to check that.

Govind also said that at least 20 to 30 workers have contacted the same Karuppiah for jobs and have transferred agent fees to various bank accounts upon Karuppiah’s instructions. We have no idea how Govind would know that nor how true that was. But what was interesting was that Govind said these money transfers (from the other workers) were to Singaporean bank accounts. This suggests the probability that Karuppiah is based in Singapore, and is committing offences within our jurisdiction.

Govind then shared with us an image of an ATM printout showing a transfer (from some hapless worker, not Dnesh or Venish) of $1,000 to a DBS/POSB account under the name of “Karuppu”.

The company

On both Dinesh’s and Venish’s false IPAs, the name of the employer was stated as Sinopec Fifth Construction Co Ltd (Singapore branch). This is quite a well-known company. From the very beginning, we didn’t think the company would be involved with what was looking more and more like a scam. We contacted them to ask if they knew anything about this matter and they were surprised to hear that their name was being used for such purposes. They also said the name “Karuppiah” didn’t sound like anyone they knew. “We recruit through responsible agents,” they told us.

The solution

With a PDF document at its centre, the MOM’s system has had a serious weakness for a long time. On this website, we have written about forgeries off and on for years. As computer skills get widespread, forgeries will become harder and harder to detect.

Fortunately, a better system is at hand, and it’s a tried and tested system too. Remember during Covid-19, when borders were beginning to re-open, and travellers had to have a way to prove to airport authorities in destination cities that their vaccination certificate was the real thing? The Singapore government issued QR codes that attested to a person’s vaccination history. The QR codes were linked to an official database with “.gov.sg” in the URL; that way one could see that the certificate had really been issued by the government.

That’s all we need. Stop issuing document-formatted IPAs in PDF format. Just issue a QR code which then links to all the necessary details of the approved work pass and its related job. In the letter to the worker informing him of the in-principle approval, tell him to scan the QR code himself, but also, at the same time, tell him to ensure that the QR code takes him to a URL path that is legitimate.

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