SINGAPORE — A former director of a travel agency pleaded guilty yesterday to offences relating to cheating and criminal breach of trust that totalled S$6,609,473.

The court heard that 33-year-old Brenda Ng Lay Yen cheated 28 people of the money between 2009 and last year.

She duped the victims — telling them that she was engaged in various investments in which they stood to make high profits if they invested with her. These sham investments were related to diamonds, oil, Universal Studios tickets and memberships, as well as plane tickets.

Ng would then tell the victims she needed more assistance in the various investments — thus causing them to recruit their families and friends as “investors”.

The victims were deceived into parting with large sums of cash.

Ng would then give them sums of money — which she claimed were the “profits” — in order to get them to continue investing.

She issued them personal cheques, company cheques and third-party cheques as a form of “security” on the investments, and told them they could cash the cheques at a later date to receive the profits.

However, when they tried to do so, they found the banks did not honour them for reasons that included the bank accounts being closed.

The court also heard that Ng had placed ads in local newspapers to sell flight tickets and tour packages, using the names of other travel agencies as a front.

She then misappropriated the money paid to her by customers who bought these packages — for example, repaying other victims for purchases made with her, or settling debts she had accumulated.

Ng, who is in remand, has made repayments amounting to over S$2.3 million.

She also pleaded guilty to theft and forgery charges. She had stolen chequebooks belonging to her sister and brother-in-law, and forged their signatures on the cheques — which would then be given to some of the victims as “security”.

In total, Ng faced 75 charges. Twenty-five were proceeded on, and the remaining 50 were taken into consideration.

Her lawyer has asked for the case to be adjourned in order to prepare her mitigation.

Ng will be back in court for sentencing on Aug 23.