With a HomeTeam PAssion Card hung around his neck, the unemployed man pretended to be a police officer and harassed students.

Mohamad Mazlan Jailani, 30, was convicted yesterday on two counts of impersonating a police officer, one of theft, and another count of cheating.

Another three charges of impersonating a public officer, cheating and forgery were taken into consideration.

On Sept 14 last year, Mazlan approached a group of four secondary school students at a staircase landing of a block in Woodlands Ring Road.

They were about to smoke when he approached them shouting "police".

He was wearing a lanyard around his neck at the time with the PAssion Card that had a police insignia printed on it.

The students believed he was a cop and Mazlan took the cigarettes and wrote down one of the student's particulars.

Four days later, he took a statement from the student and said he was a gang member before telling the boy to go home.

On Sept 26, he found some of the students again at Admiralty Place and said he was an officer from Jurong Police Division.

But acting on information from the students' school, police officers turned up and arrested him.

The court also heard that in June 2017, he cheated a woman he met on dating app Tagged into giving him $500 by lying that he had been detained at the Central Narcotics Bureau and would be charged if he did not post bail.

FORGED POLICE CARD

Mazlan also pleaded guilty to a charge of forging a police warrant card in June 2017 that will be taken into consideration.

He is expected to be sentenced on May 15.

For each charge of impersonating a public servant, he could be jailed up to two years, or fined, or both. For theft, he could be jailed up to three years, or fined, or both. For cheating, he could be jailed up to three years, or fined, or both.