Former Keppel Club senior executive charged with selling fake memberships

SINGAPORE — The woman who was at the centre of a probe into alleged fraud involving Keppel Club memberships was hauled to court on Tuesday (Nov 8), to face charges of selling fraudulent memberships to unsuspecting buyers.

Irene Setho, a former senior executive at the club, was charged with a total of 60 counts of cheating, falsifying Keppel Club’s accounts, and acquiring benefits in the form of monetary property from her criminal conduct.

The club had filed a police report in 2014. Some S$37 million is said to have been lost in the alleged membership fraud, which involved fake transfers and the duping of applicants into paying someone else when they thought they were paying the club, according to a probe report.

Setho, 69, who started working at Singapore’s oldest country club as a clerk in 1966 and rose through the ranks to supervise its membership department, was sacked as a result of the probe.

Some of her charges involve her allegedly abetting her colleagues to make fraudulent entries in the club’s membership system to create the “phantom memberships”.

According to the charge sheets, these “phantom membership transfers” occurred over 11 years from 2004 to 2014.

Prosecutors say Setho will face a total of 3,181 charges. She is now out on bail and will appear in court again on Dec 6.

If found guilty of falsifying accounts or cheating, Setho can be jailed up to ten years or fined for each charge, or both. For acquiring property as a result of an offence, she may be jailed up to seven years or fined S$500,000, or both.

Setho, her husband Lawrence Ng and brother Setho Wai Meng, are also among the defendants before an ongoing High Court civil suit launched by Keppel last year.