SINGAPORE — He swindled 62 victims, some of them his friends or acquaintances, out of S$503,988 over more than a year — all to feed his gambling addiction.

For perpetuating a series of Facebook investment scams with his personal account, Alvin Ker Jia Jun was sentenced to four-and-a-half years behind bars on Tuesday (Oct 15).

The 31-year-old had pleaded guilty to 40 counts of cheating in August, with another 95 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

He had hatched the plan to scam others after developing a gambling habit in 2017. He made various posts on his Facebook account, seeking investors for non-existent schemes with attractive guaranteed rates of return.

People could choose a one-year or three-month scheme, and Ker promised that they could double their investment capital within that period — with the capital invested guaranteed.

After posting on Facebook, Ker asked his friends to help share the post on their own social media networks to gain more visibility and publicity.

Through various ruses, he got his victims to believe the investment was real and to transfer money to him. When he won gambling bets, he would transfer money to some of his clients to keep the scheme going.

He also posted screenshots of the bank transfer on his Facebook page, which were shared by his friends and victims as well.

One acquaintance “invested” about S$72,000 and received only about S$17,000 in return.

After some time, however, he began losing heavily at gambling and grew desperate. More victims came into the picture when he asked his friends to look for more investors.

In order to placate the initial victims who were asking for their returns, Ker gave them excuses — for example, that he reached his transfer limit. He eventually lost all the money his victims handed him.

He has made restitution of just S$100,246.

For each cheating charge, he could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined.