Man arrested after selling “fake” Rolex that turned out to be real

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A man thought he was swapping a counterfeit Rolex for three real ones, but it turned out the watch he was trading was genuine. This led the court to call the situation an unbelievable and unusual exchange.

Deepak Singh, 24, pulled off a surprising trade in Singapore: he swapped a watch he believed was a fake Rolex for three real Rolexes. The unusual deal fell apart, however, when experts determined the watch he traded in was actually authentic.

Real Rolex mix-up turned alleged scam into legal oddity

A man reportedly believed he’d been sold a counterfeit Rolex GMT-Master II, nicknamed “Saru,” and attempted to exchange it for three genuine Rolex watches worth about $71,000. He then tried to leave Singapore on a late-night flight, according to Channel News Asia.

Police in Singapore first flagged the issue in a report from November 2025. The report indicated the watch being traded was suspected of being fake, and a man was arrested at Changi Airport just hours later. Officers recovered three Rolex watches during the arrest.

The situation took an unexpected turn during the legal proceedings. A technician at a Rolex Service Centre verified the watch that had been exchanged was genuine. This led prosecutors to argue the concept of an “impossible attempt” – meaning the accused intended to commit a crime, but it was factually impossible to carry out.

Basically, the court decided that Singh’s belief he was trying to trick the store with a fake watch was enough to prove he intended to commit a crime. It didn’t matter that the watch was actually real and his plan wouldn’t have worked anyway.

After admitting he tried to defraud someone, the man received a seven-month jail sentence.

In 2024, streamer IShowSpeed received a surprising gift from a fan: a watch claimed to be worth over $300,000. Initially, he thought it might be a counterfeit, but it unexpectedly turned out to be genuine. This came after a previous experience where he believed a watch was real, only to discover it was a fake.

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2026-04-21 14:49