SINGAPORE: A 49-year-old woman entered a guilty plea to numerous charges of cheating on Thursday (Oct 12). In all, Joceyln Kwek Sok Koon cheated 10 people of over S$880,000.
Kwek’s victims include three men with whom she had romantic relationships, as well as the sister and parents of one of her lovers. She managed to convince the parents of her lover and co-accused, Lai Sze Yin, now 28, to fork over S$150,454, for investments or a car loan. These were the life savings of Lai’s parents.
Lai, a delivery man, was sentenced to one year and three months in jail by the State Courts in June 2021 after pleading guilty to four cheating charges involving S$95,778.
Kwek, who was married at the time of her relationship with Lai, met him in July 2016, when the then-24-year-old Lai delivered a package to her home. They began their dalliance shortly afterwards.
Kwek and Lai cheated Lai’s family with Kwek pretending to be a National University of Singapore student named Rachel Lam Xin Yi. “Rachel” would talk to Lai’s parents on the phone and sent them gifts but never met them in person. When she won them and Lai’s younger sister over, she tricked them into giving her large amounts of money, which she said were for investments or loans. The “girlfriend” promised high interest rates on the amounts they handed over.
However, by October 2018, Lai’s mother filed a police report against her son’s “girlfriend”, stating that the woman had scammed the family out of their entire savings.
Around the same time Kwek was in a relationship with Lai, she also scammed another man, a 35-year-old Certis Cisco employee who had fallen in love with her through chats and video calls. Between September 2017 and March 2019, he transferred around S$48,000 to her.
She returned around S$1,900 to him by April 2021.
In June 2021, however, the Certis employee filed a police report against her. CNA reports that Kwek evaded giving a statement to the police through rescheduling appointments with them.
Even when Kwek was out on bail after being charged in relation to her case with Lai’s family, she cheated a former workmate of her husband, a British man, 66. She told this man in March 2020 that she needed funds for claiming her inheritance, promising to return the money afterwards and even pretending to be a male lawyer on a chat group to bolster her claims. She also lied to him about having leukaemia in a bid to gain sympathy.
He ended up handing over a total of S$338,600 to her.
Kwek also claimed that she could be his sponsor for his application for permanent residency for himself and his family, and lied to him in January 2021, telling him his PR application had been granted and forging documents from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).
He lost his job and his legal stay in Singapore ended. He also had to face mounting debts and suffered mental health issues because of Kwok’s doings. The man was later investigated by the ICA for overstaying.
Another of her victims was a 39-year-old piano store salesman who handed her S$103,710 after he fell in love with her, amounts he obtained from loans from his mother, sister and friends. Despite discovering that she had sent him a fake picture of herself, he entered into a romantic relationship with her anyway.
CNA added that Kwek had also cheated her own godmother, 73, of jewellery that she said she was getting cleaned but that she actually pawned for S$48,250 so she could repay debts.
Ms Phoebe Tan, the Deputy Public Prosecutor on Kwok’s case, is asking for 91 to 100 months’ jail for Kwek. The DPP underlined that even though Kwek has no prior convictions, “she’s a serial cheat who had scammed at least 10 known victims of a substantial amount of money”. Sentencing will be carried out at a later date.
/TISG