THREE Malaysians involved in a telephone lucky draw scam were each jailed for one year on Monday for allowing their bank accounts to be used by a man for criminal purpose.

Ho Chun Fatt, Tee Kim Heong, both 34, and Goh Chee Wei, 24, pleaded guilty on Monday to allowing one Lee Chee Kit to make use of their DBS Bank accounts, having reasonable grounds to believe that he was engaged in criminal conduct.

They were arrested by the Commercial Affairs Department at DBS Toa Payoh branch on Oct 22 last year.

Their accounts had been used to receive money from victims who had been conned in the lucky draw scam.

Lee is at large.

Police prosecutor Sheik Allaudeen told a court that since July last year), a large number of people in Singapore had fallen prey to a mobile phone scam.

Scammers would call on the pretext of conducting a survey and invite the victims to attend an event.

A few days later, the victims would be told they had won a prize as their names and mobile numbers were entered in a lucky draw on their behalf.

To claim the prize, the victims were told to pay administrative fees into bank accounts or through a remittance house.

After each 'fee' had been paid, the victims would be asked to pay more fees with the promise of large sums of money.

The victims stopped paying after realising they had been duped or when they ran out of money.

The court heard that it all started last October in Kuala Lumpur when Lee approached Ho and asked him to open a bank account for him to use in return for $500

Lee said the account would be used to facilitate an illegal horse betting syndicate to receive money from gamblers.

But Ho did not make any inquiries to find out if Lee was actually operating such a syndicate.

He then extended Lee's offer to Tee and Goh as well and both agreed to open bank accounts in Singapore.

On Oct 16, the trio made their way here and opened accounts at DBS branches at Towner Road and Toa Payoh.

Ho then received $500 from Lee. Ho passed Lee's $200 and RM600 (S$262) to Tee and RM1,000 to Goh.

Subsequently, Lee withdrew a total of $32,900 from the three accounts.

Each of the trio could have been fined up to $500,000 or jailed for up to seven years, or both for the offence under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act.