Putney Schoolboy Flees to Singapore

Selling fake ID to local school kids raised him an estimated £100,000

 

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An 18 year old Putney school boy has fled to Singapore after allegedly being involved in large scale forgery of fake IDs. Ye-Ming Yuen, who went to £25,000-a-year Westminster School, admitted to a national newspaper that he manufactured fake documents and sold them to underage pupils taking £15 - £25 a time. It is believed that he raised over £100,000 in the scheme

The forgeries enabled the teenagers from schools including King's College and Wimbledon High to buy alcohol at pubs and off-licences by concealing their true age.

The Mail tracked Ye-Ming Yuen to a night club in Singapore where he was working as the resident DJ under the name DJ Ming since April. Detectives based in Wimbledon have recovered 40 of the fakes but they believe over 4000 were made.

Ye-Ming Yuen told the reporters from The Mail, "I'm sorry for what I did. I regret it now. But it was such an easy way to make money and my friends and I were so desperate to get into the clubs. I was a slave to the club culture and so were all my mates but we did not have the money and were too young. "

He started by making a driving licence for himself when he was 16 and then he was asked by a friend at Westminster to make one for him. Soon he was receiving a flood of orders and charging £25 a time. He told the press that he had to leave Westminster after some bad investments by his father meant that his family could no longer afford the fees. He then attended the sixth form at Graveney School.

The police found out about his activities when his name kept cropping up in interviews with school children caught with fake IDs.

August 15, 2007