Brian Wee Beng Swee, the conman

I make reference to a post I wrote towards the end of last year about this one friend. Well, turns out that he may actually be a conman after all following some recent revelations.

While I believe I have not been manipulated in any way, I consider the man called Brian Wee Beng Swee to be a potential danger to anyone he attempts to befriend because I - as well as some others who got involved in his con - are unable to figure out his motives until today. Let me share you my story.

I used to be quite active on Twitter some time ago, during which I went through a particularly devastating breakup. Brian, who went by the name David Wee then, was following me on Twitter using the now abandoned handle @dmwee. He got in touch with me through DMs and I was grateful for his support and encouragement.

At the same time, he started engaging with me and several other people I know on Twitter, including J, a former housemate of mine who is based in Indonesia. Somehow the three of us gravitated towards one another and we became close friends through our constant banter on Twitter and later, in a WhatsApp group just for us. I had also met Brian a few times by then and the impression I got of him was someone who had a lot of interesting stories to tell, a lot of fun to be around with and a good support in times when you needed to rant.

Brian was secretive about his work at first. I was contemplating leaving my company when he suggested that I apply to his workplace, DHL. He claimed an ad would be published soon and there would be a suitable vacancy available for which I can apply to. The ad never happened. Later, he would claim that he worked for FedEx Malaysia/Singapore/Asia Pacific as one of its directors in charge of what sounded like logistics (duh), but later on, this scope seemed to include communications and CSR also. This story would remain consistent throughout the rest of the time we got to know him.

From the stories fed to us, we then developed an impression that Brian was successful, well-connected, well-to-do, knowledgeable about many things and very generous with his money - not that we actually saw proof of all these things. On the several occasions we met to catch up, Brian would usually be the one to pick up the tab though, which I did appreciate but to be fair, we usually met up at very middle-range establishments so I never really got to see Brian's true display of wealth.

Later, the stories from Brian started evolving into the outlandish. It began with a "confession" that he was afraid to reveal to his fiancee, a woman he called Mary whom we never got to meet in person, the true nature of his job. Brian claimed that he was part of a special unit in FedEx that handled dangerous deliveries and that they were preparing to go for a mission to deliver the ransom money to a Filipino militant group in exchange for a group of civilians hostages.

In between all the alleged traveling he did between the Malaysian, Singapore and Hong Kong offices and all the other undercover operations, Brian's life began taking on a dramatic turn with his father passing away from a heart attack, followed by his nearly passing away in a drunk-drive car accident and other deaths of close family members. With the exception of his father's alleged death, these big events would always take place right around the time when big plans were made between the three of us friends.

Brian's accident, which allegedly left him in a coma due to a severe head injury, happened a few days before me and J were to fly to Singapore to catch a play with Brian, his fiance and a few others from his family. Looking back, perhaps we were too trusting. Brian claimed that as he received a hefty bonus from FedEx, he would treat us from the flight tickets to the theatre and to everything else. He urged us to get for ourselves some fancy wear for the champagne dinner and like idiots, we did. We never saw the tickets, whether for the flights or for the show; Brian took upon himself to plan everything for us. How did we discover about this? Well, we believe that Brian impersonated his elder brother, Joseph (whether this is true or not, we never found out), who got in touch with us through the WhatsApp group and communicated with us throughout the entire ordeal.

And the story kept repeating itself. Later on, another friend, Q, started hanging out with Brian. The tall tales kept on coming, big plans were made and got cancelled, and predictably, more relatives died.

It was around this time when J got in touch with me in private and asked if I have lent money to Brian. I discovered that over time, J had lent money amounting to over RM6,000 to Brian and was having difficulty getting it back, which was odd, since we believed Brian to be well-to-do. Again, I suppose we were being naive fools, considering we never even saw Brian driving his own car. He always showed up to meet us by public transportation.

I contacted Q to confirm a suspicion that I was starting to have then about Brian, following a previous outing we had to a bar. The three of us put our heads together, compared notes, developed theories and made a plan to con him into returning J's money. Unfortunately for us, Brian had the last laugh. In his last ditch effort to extricate himself, he then impersonated his sister-in-law and then a cousin, Brian (well, well, well), to tell us through the WhatsApp group that he had fallen into a terrible depression due to money matters and had to be admitted into a psychiatric ward at some hospital in Sarawak.

We failed to communicate with Brian or any of the other characters that we believe he impersonated.

TLDR; we cannot for the life of us figure out what Brian Wee Beng Swee's true motives were but we learnt that this is not the first time he tried to con "friends" into giving/lending him money after concocting all these elaborate (possibly) lies. Aside from claiming to be a director at FedEx Malaysia/Singapore/Asia Pacific, he is also likely get on your good side by promising you a job at his place which of course, never materialises due to some circumstance or other (you know, redtape issues LOL or yet another sudden terrorist/hostage situation that he needs to get involved in).

What we know to be true is his name and that he is from Kuching, Sarawak. He may have possibly worked at FedEx Singapore at one point but not in the position he claimed to be in. He is still in KL. I spotted him in Nu Sentral a few months ago.

A police report has been lodged against Brian. If you or perhaps, you know anyone, who may have gotten in touch with him recently, do get in touch. This Brian Wee Beng Swee has a lot of explaining to do.

Some updates here, found out that Brian's dad (most likely) is called Henry Wee Boon Hai, 64, a retired policeman.

These are some family photos of Brian. Any information is much appreciated.