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SINGAPORE: A Malaysian man posed as a Caucasian sugar daddy online, luring women from Singapore to Malaysia where he tricked them into sex acts and extorted one woman of more than S$183,000 (US$140,970).

Rajwant Singh Gill Narajan Singh, 38, claimed trial but was convicted of four charges including cheating for sex and extortion.

The prosecution on Thursday (Nov 27) sought 13 years’ jail and 15 strokes of the cane for Singh, calling his conduct “horrific and perverse”.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin added that had Singh committed the acts in Singapore, he could have been charged with multiple counts of rape.

To protect the identities of the victims of various offences - which number 16 across all charges he originally faced - details like their names, nationalities and occupations have been redacted from court papers.

THE CASE

At the time of the offences between 2018 and 2020, Singh was unemployed and living in Malaysia with his wife and children.

According to the prosecution, he came up with a scheme to obtain money and sexual gratification by deception.

His general modus operandi was to pose as a white man on Tinder or other online dating platforms and propose a "sugar daddy" relationship with a victim, offering money for sex and companionship.

He posed online as a successful man living on a yacht in Malaysia.

When the victim agreed, he would have her send explicit photos or videos of herself before inviting her to Malaysia.

Singh would meet the victim pretending to be the man's driver, then use the sugar daddy's persona to coerce her into sleeping with him.

After this, Singh would threaten to disseminate the victim's explicit footage if she did not transfer him money or provide other forms of gratification.

Singh would pretend to befriend the victim using his driver persona and claim that he was also being threatened by the sugar daddy.

This allowed him to communicate using a "good" and "bad" personality to assess whether to appeal to the victim on compassionate grounds or to threaten them.

One victim matched with "Mike" on Tinder before late February 2020, before chatting with him on WhatsApp, where Mike offered US$30,000 per month for a sexual relationship.

This required the victim going to Malaysia to have sex with Mike monthly and filming explicit media of herself in sex acts.

The woman agreed because she was interested in a long-term relationship with Mike, who appeared to be a good-looking and successful man, and because the money offered far exceeded her own salary.

The woman sent Mike videos of herself engaging in sex acts and flew to Penang on Feb 28, 2020, where she met Singh, who was posing as Mike's driver.

Singh later posed as Mike and demanded the woman to have sex with Singh or he would disseminate the material.

The woman testified that she performed other lewd acts to prevent dissemination on Mike's instructions, including meeting other unknown men for sex.

She was coerced into sex work and had her clients chosen for her, with her earnings going to Mike.

The woman was extorted of a total sum of more than S$183,000. Mike never provided any payment to her.

The woman finally lodged a police report in October 2020.

Singh was eventually arrested in a joint covert operation by the Singapore Police Force and Royal Malaysian Police Force and charged in Singapore.

He gave detailed confessions across 16 statements explaining how he carried out the crimes, saying he needed money for his family's expenses and expressing remorse.

However, at trial, he denied the charges and claimed he did have sex with the victims but was not the "sugar daddy".

Singh was unrepresented. He said nothing in mitigation, leaving the sentence to the court.

The prosecutor, Mr Bin, said this case was "the very worst of its kind" and that Singh was "effectively a serial rapist".

He said his conduct was depraved, sadistic and malicious. The acts he forced the victims to do were "utterly debasing" and "disgusting".

One woman was flogged and whipped until she was badly wounded.

Another had her life and career "derailed" while one victim could not be diagnosed as she was so traumatised she could not properly attend therapy, which triggered flashbacks.

Mr Bin said the offences were committed in a particularly manipulative manner, with Singh purposefully making use of the inherent power disparity in a dominant-submissive sexual relationship and manipulating his victims into delaying reporting or realising they had been deceived.

He claimed trial "to the bitter end" and attempted to elicit "wholly irrelevant and scandalous details" of the victims' sex lives, making claims against police officers and the prosecution.

"He has blamed every single person but himself," said Mr Bin.

The judge adjourned sentencing to January.