Man pays 17-year-old girl $600 for sex, she then extorts $50,000 from him with another teen

Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
April 12, 2024

A man who paid a 17-year-old $600 for sexual services was later forced to hand over another $50,000 when she worked with another teenage girl to extort money from him.

On April 12, the 35-year-old was sentenced to nine weeks’ jail after he pleaded guilty to handing her cash in exchange for sexual services.

Details about the trio cannot be disclosed due to gag orders. The two girls were below 18 at the time of the offences while the man was a victim of extortion.

In mid-February 2023, he communicated with a user of messaging platform Telegram to look for someone who could provide sexual services.

Details about the Telegram user were redacted from court documents.

The man met the girl who provided the sexual services in a Lengkok Bahru toilet near Redhill Road in the wee hours of Feb 26, 2023. She told him that she was 17.

He handed her $600 and they exchanged contact information.

On March 6, 2023, he offered her $400 to go to the movies with him. She accepted, and told the other teen, who is one year younger than her, about him.

The two hatched a plan to meet the man and extort money from him for obtaining sexual services from a minor, threatening to lodge a police report if he refused to pay up.

The teenager who performed the sexual acts turned 18 in April 2023, while the younger girl, identified in court documents as A1, is now 17.

When the man met them at a multi-storey carpark near Lot One shopping mall in Choa Chu Kang, A1 asked if he knew that the older girl was a minor. He replied that he was aware that she was 17.

A1 told him he could be jailed if the police were alerted about what he had done.

He proposed handing over between $2,000 and $5,000, but A1 stated that she had a $100,000 debt to settle.

After negotiation, they agreed that he would pay $50,000 in exchange for the girls’ silence. The two teenagers allowed him to leave after he transferred the amount to the older girl’s bank account.

On April 3, 2023, he alerted the police and said he had been “scammed”. Officers arrested him and the younger girl the next day. Court documents did not state when the other girl was arrested.

On Feb 22, the older girl was ordered to undergo reformative training for at least six months after she pleaded guilty to one count each of cheating and extortion.

This means she will be detained in a centre to observe a strict regimen that can include foot drills and counselling.

The younger girl’s case is pending.