70-year-old woman jailed 66 months for S$330K beauty investment scam to repay loan sharks

SINGAPORE: Unable to pay loan sharks, a 70-year-old woman set up a beauty product investment scam and targeted two beauty salons. She managed to scam more than $330,000 from 15 beauticians and customers. 

The suspect now faces a total of 15 charges, including three charges of criminal breach of trust and 12 counts of fraud. She pleaded guilty to four of the charges, and the remaining charges are being taken into consideration by the judge. Furthermore, she was sentenced to 66 months’ imprisonment. 

Case details

According to case investigations, the suspect borrowed at least S$70,000 from loan sharks in 2018 and was unable to repay the debt. Due to this, she was harassed and pursued by the loan sharks. In order to escape from this, she decided to set up fake beauty product investments and deceive beauty salons. 

In 2019, the suspect scammed six employees and six customers in a salon located on Whampoa Road, claiming that they would obtain high returns from the ‘investment’. One victim, a beautician, invested more than S$9,000 in three instalments, and initially claimed more than $15,000 back. After experiencing success, the victim invited more relatives and encouraged them to invest together. 

Eventually, the victim and her relatives pooled their money and handed over more than $56,000 to the suspect in four instalments. The suspect guaranteed that they would receive more than S$114,000 in return by 2020. 

During one of their conversations, the suspect also lied to the victims, stating that she had a meeting with the company’s shareholders to collect their money. Sceptical about the suspect’s actions, the victim then searched the suspect’s information online and discovered that she had been involved in a fraud case. 

The suspect had been previously sentenced to 32 months in prison for a scam as well.  When reported to the police, the suspect only returned S$5,000 to the victim. Moreover, the suspect collected a total of more than S$200,000 from 12 victims, but compensated eight of them. 

When the suspect pleaded to the judge for leniency, she declared: “I’m old, I know I was wrong, and I will change!” 

In similar news about scams, there was a report where a warehouse assistant embezzled 91 mobile phones and watches, amounting to more than S$64,000, within a year. With this, the 48-year-old suspect was charged with breach of trust and pleaded guilty. 

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