Yap Weng Wah

Yap Weng Wah (born 1983), alias Wai Loon or Loon, is a Malaysian serial sex offender, who formerly worked as a quality assurance engineer, and is currently jailed in Singapore for 76 sexual offences committed against 31 teenage boys aged between 11 and 15 in Singapore.

He befriended his victims online, had sex with them and filmed his illegal acts.

During police investigations, Yap was found to have raped 14 more boys in Malaysia in between his constant trips from Singapore to Malaysia before his arrest.

Yap was sentenced to 30 years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane, as he was assessed to remain a danger to society with his high risk of re-offending and the aggravating nature of his crimes.

Born sometime in 1983, Yap is the eldest of three children, having a brother and a sister.

His birthplace and hometown is in Ipoh, Malaysia.

Yap grew up in a single-parent household, as his father left for New Zealand when he was eight years old and presumably never came back.

His mother stayed and raised the three children by herself, sometimes under financial struggles.

According to his lawyer, when Yap was in primary school, at the age of 12, he had his first sexual encounter with his male mathematics teacher, who performed both oral sex and anal sex on him.

These sexual encounters would occur at least once or twice a week, and it lasted nine months until Yap finished school.

According to his lawyer, as attributed to the lack of fatherly love in his childhood, Yap believed that his sexual acts with the teacher were acts of love and intimacy.

Yap went on to further his studies after his graduation from primary school.

After undergoing education, Yap became a quality assurance engineer, and later worked as one at ASM Technology in Singapore since 2009.

According to a colleague, Yap, who was known as "Travis" at work, was normally a quiet individual and never showed any signs of sexual perversions.

While he was working in Singapore, Yap, then 26 years old, began his sexual offences from November 2009 till June 2012, three months before Yap was arrested.

In total, Yap had committed the offences against 31 pubescent boys aged between 11 and 15, who were not named to protect their identities.

Yap typically, through the Internet, looked for boys who lived or who went to school near his rental apartment in New Upper Changi Road, and later in Yishun.

He would then befriend his targeted victims online and pretend to be a 18-year-old polytechnic student under the aliases Wai Loon or Loon.

Sometimes, Yap would also say he was from Indonesia.

During these online interactions with those victims who accepted him as online friends, Yap would present himself as an older brother-figure or mentor to gain their trust, and they would chat or message together over several weeks or months.

Together with his victims, Yap talked about hobbies, movies, sports and computer games.

He would also find a way to bring up the topic of sex in midst of these online conversations.

Yap would then set up physical meetings with the victims under the pretext of giving them gifts, playing computer games, or giving tips about bodybuilding.

During these physical meetings, which took place in places like his rented Yishun flat, Woodlands, Hougang, Aljunied and Changi, a chalet at Downtown East, a hotel room in Geylang, and even toilet cubicles at public places like swimming pools and malls, Yap would then convince his victims to allow him to perform oral sex or anal sex on them (without a condom), which went on even if the boys refused, saying they were not homosexual, cried, or were reluctant.

Except for one 12-year-old boy, the remaining 30 victims were sexually assaulted in this way during these meetings.

Yap would also use his phone or camera to film himself having sex with the boys.

When the boys protested, Yap promised he would delete the footage, but saved these videos to his laptop to re-watch and masturbate to.

At the time Yap was captured, the police found a total of 2,218 videos recorded and stored inside Yap's laptop.

These videos were also catalogued with the names and ages of the victims, and the year Yap met the victims.

On the 23-page charge sheet filed by the prosecution in relation to the 76 criminal charges made against Yap, 7 charges involved 11-year-olds, 13 dealt with 12-year-olds and 4 with 15-year-olds.

The majority of the charges involved boys ages 13 and 14 – 32 and 20 charges respectively.

Fifty one charges were related to sexual penetration of a minor below 14 years old, 24 were for minors below 16, and one involved a charge of Yap asking a 12-year-old to film himself performing sex and sending the video to Yap; that 12-year-old boy was the same boy who was the only victim Yap never had sex with.

A select few of these 76 crimes were publicly released in certain articles covering Yap's crimes.

One of these crimes took place on 4 February 2010, where in Hougang Swimming Complex, a 13-year-old boy was told to remove his school uniform in a toilet cubicle, where Yap sodomised him and filmed the act.

In March 2010, a 15-year-old boy met up with Yap in a hotel, where Yap tried to undress and kiss the boy.

Despite the victim's protests, Yap performed oral sex on him.

On 25 September 2011, a 14-year-old boy was told to perform oral sex on Yap in a toilet cubicle in the Tampines Stadium.

Another case, which took place on an unspecified date, involved another boy whom Yap met and chatted with for a few months on Facebook before their first physical meeting in a mall.

After the duo had lunch and played arcade games, he took the boy to his rented room to watch cartoons online while his landlord was in the living room.

Yap later removed the boy's clothes and sexually assaulted him, promising it would not happen again.