SINGAPORE — For 12 years, Emeline Tang Wei Leng carried out an elaborate ruse, deceiving five people – including her own family members – into investing their savings in non-existent fixed deposit plans with HSBC bank.

Given her former position as a senior vice-president at the bank, they trusted her with a total of S$5.2 million. But Tang, 39, used their savings to fund her gambling habit.

On Friday (June 29), the District Court sentenced Tang to 10 years and six months' imprisonment for 34 charges including cheating and forgery. Another 223 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Tang had pleaded guilty to her offences on June 1.

The court heard that Tang first carried out her cheating plan in 2003 after learning from her husband that his 79-year-old aunt had gained some money after selling her property.

Tang got in touch with the woman and proposed fixed deposit plans at HSBC for her to invest her money. She claimed that the plans offered high interest rates of 3 to 4 per cent.

The plans did not exist, but Tang managed to dupe the woman into issuing her a cash cheque instead of one payable to HSBC. Tang claimed that this would make it faster to deposit the money.

Up until 2015, Tang cheated four other individuals – her 45-year-old sister-in-law, two distant relatives aged 69 and 79, and their 81-year-old friend. Details of the victims were not revealed in court documents.

To make the sham convincing, Tang prepared policy booklets bearing HSBC's logo and that contained details such as policy numbers and value on maturity.

She would hand out cash to the victims each time they asked for money from their accounts, claiming they were interest payments.

At first, Tang kept the ill-gotten gains in her own HSBC account, but later withdrew the money to avoid suspicion.

She subsequently encashed the cheques over the counter and kept the money at home.

She exchanged a sizeable chunk of the cash for gambling chips at the casinos in Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa (RWS). Her chips from the RWS casino alone amounted to about S$600,000.

Starting out as a relationship manager, Tang rose up the corporate ladder and was in the financial planning division when she left HSBC in 2012.

She continued her ruse even after leaving the bank, but her dishonesty was uncovered when some of the victims wanted to withdraw their money from the fixed deposit plans.

Tang was unable to return their money and the victims contacted HSBC, only to be informed that they did not have any fixed deposit accounts with the bank.

Calling for Tang to be handed at least a 10-year jail term, the prosecution argued that she had preyed on elderly and vulnerable victims and caused the "devastating" loss of their life savings.

"Unable to work to recoup the losses inflicted upon them and left with limited funds, they have not only lost the ability to enjoy their golden years, they must spend those years in financial suffering," said Deputy Public Prosecutor Haniza Abnass.

Tang's lawyer Mathew Kurian called for eight years’ jail, saying she had resorted to crime to settle her husband's gambling debts and pay for her father's cancer treatment.

Tang was in an "emotionally abusive" relationship and underwent a divorce last year, he said. She has also returned more than S$800,000 to the victims.

District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim agreed with the prosecution, saying that the victims "have been left so devastated" by the loss of their savings. "I don't see how they'll ever recover," she said.