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Jail for woman who scammed dozens of nearly S$700,000 by offering attractive foreign exchange rates

SINGAPORE — She went around telling acquaintances that she could exchange Singapore dollars at higher-than-usual rates to a range of foreign currencies such as the Malaysian ringgit and Chinese yuan.

The court heard that Cheong Bee Jung, 60, scammed dozens of victims by offering very attractive foreign exchange rates.

The court heard that Cheong Bee Jung, 60, scammed dozens of victims by offering very attractive foreign exchange rates.

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SINGAPORE — She went around telling acquaintances that she could exchange Singapore dollars at higher-than-usual rates to a range of foreign currencies such as the Malaysian ringgit and Chinese yuan.

For instance, she promised rates of RM4.2 to S$1, when the going rate was about RM3 to S$1.

Cheong Bee Jung, 60, also got people to hand over their money by falsely promising event lots for road shows in bustling shopping centres, such as Nex Shopping Mall in Serangoon.

Dozens fell for her ruses, and she ultimately amassed close to S$700,000 from her scams over seven years, from 2010 to 2017, the court heard on Wednesday (Aug 14).

Cheong was sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to 29 charges, covering offences of cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery, theft and providing false information to a public servant. More than 100 similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

As this was Cheong’s third spree of criminal offences, District Judge Marvin Bay rapped her for demonstrating a “blatant disregard for the law”.

Cheong was jailed a total of four years in 1999 and 2007 for cheating. The latest set of charges showed that her conduct has “escalated and gotten worse”, the judge said.

Her lawyer, Ms Chong Yi Mei, told the court that Cheong had reoffended as she owed money to illegal moneylenders and her debts had since spiralled out of control.

Ms Chong added that Cheong had first turned to crime as her husband, a factory worker, earned little and relied on her income to repay their flat in Bishan. As a result of her first round of convictions, their flat had to be sold, causing her family to have to live in a rental flat, she said.

OFFERING RATES OF S$1 TO RM4.2, 8 YUAN, OR US$1.2

Cheong’s foreign currency scams covered Chinese yuan, United States dollars and Malaysian ringgit. She promised rates as high as S$1 to 8 yuan and S$1 to US$1.2 when the usual rates at the time of the scams for the Chinese yuan was S$1 to 5 yuan, and S$1 to about US$0.70.

One of her victims was a 47-year-old named Tong Chee Kin who wanted to exchange S$50,000 to yuan after being introduced to her by his girlfriend.

He met Cheong on Feb 14, 2014 to hand her S$47,000, keeping S$3,000 as a commission for his girlfriend who had recommended the exchange. But Cheong started giving Mr Tong problems after handing him 100,000 yuan the next day, which was only equivalent to S$12,500 based on the agreed exchange rate of S$1 to 8 yuan.

She did not show up to hand over the remaining 300,000 yuan on Feb 17, 2014, and handed him S$5,500 as compensation for delayed payments on Feb 19 and 21.

Cheong pulled a similar ruse on a 37-year-old named Elgin Koh Chia Hou in August that year.

Mr Koh was recommended to her by his former colleague. Seeing it as an investment opportunity, he handed over S$30,750 for a promised exchange rate of S$1 to 6.5 yuan, even signing a written agreement to confirm the deal.

Before handing over any money, Cheong called Mr Koh to ask if he was interested in exchanging the yuan he was set to receive to US dollars at an “exclusive” rate of S$1 to US$1.2. If so, he would have to hand over another S$45,000, she said.

Mr Koh agreed to invest S$20,000 instead, but Cheong pleaded with him until she managed to get S$44,000 more from him for the second investment.

She fled after taking the money, returning only S$4,500 to Mr Koh to date.

SHE LURED ‘INVESTORS’ INTO EXCHANGING MORE, LIED TO POLICE TOO

The court also heard that Cheong would give her "investors" a taste of the sweet returns to earn their trust and confidence in order to lure them into handing her more money.

This happened to Mr Kuah Kar Chuan, 29, who fell for her ringgit scam in December 2015.

Mr Kuah, who came to know Cheong during the course of his work, first handed over S$1,000 to get a rate of S$1 to RM4.2, then asked to exchange another S$2,000 more.

When Cheong handed over RM4,200 to seal their initial Dec 12 transaction, Mr Kuah transferred S$5,000 more on Dec 15 and S$2,000 more on Dec 18.

Cheong told him she would hand him the ringgit by the end of the month, but Mr Koh never got the money back.

In relation to her event space rental scams, Deputy Public Prosecutors Kelvin Chong said Cheong had stolen cheque books and forged signatures on the cheques which she issued to her victims as purported repayment of sums owed to them to further her deception.

At the time, in April 2015, she was employed by Da Cai Pte Ltd as a full-time administrative executive and personal assistant to collect and sort the company’s mail. She had also misappropriated tens of thousands of dollars entrusted to her both as an employee and in her personal capacity.

When being investigated in 2014, Cheong even deceived the police by falsely implicating an innocent third party — Mr Chan Sek Heng, a 42-year-old Malaysian newspaper vendor in Pahang, Malaysia — who was arrested and extradited to Singapore on Dec 7, 2018.

Cheong had told the police that she handed over the money her victims passed to her to Mr Chan, and it was the man who became uncontactable thereafter.

Mr Chan was remanded for close to two weeks as a result, until Cheong admitted to having given a false statement implicating him.

Cheong was offered bail at S$100,000 following her arrest in 2017, but she did not avail herself of it, so she has since spent more than two years in remand.

Remarking that she is already halfway through her sentence considering the one-third remission for good conduct, District Judge Bay said: “I do hope that you will be able to put your life in order, and lead a good and clean life (after coming out of jail).”

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