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A pair of young lovers was charged in court on Wednesday for allegedly extorting $6,000 from a man.
Yap Siew Ting, 17, and her boyfriend, Alexander Soh Zhi Ren, 22, each faces one count of committing extortion with common intention.
They are accused of intentionally putting Mr Ng Yong Cheng, 22, in fear of injury to his reputation by threatening to upload a nude video of him onto the Internet if he did not deliver the required sum of money.
They allegedly committed the offence on Jan 8 at around 5.40pm at a 13th-storey flat in Block 32, Marsiling Drive.
The long-haired Yap and the lanky Soh, who are jobless, were clad in black and wore spectacles.
They were the first of six suspected members of an online sex syndicate to be charged in court.
The members are aged between 17 and 47 years old.
Yap and Soh were arrested at around 4am on Tuesday at the Marsiling unit. Yap's mother and her boyfriend were nabbed at the same time following a police stakeout.
Another two members of the group - a Singaporean man and a female permanent resident - were arrested later that day in a separate raid in Ang Mo Kio.
Yap and Soh will next appear in court next Wednesday.
The court ordered that they be remanded for a week at Ang Mo Kio police division for further investigation as they are believed to be involved in other similar cases.
If convicted, they can be jailed between two and seven years and caned.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
