Nearly 4 years’ jail for woman who paid S$124,000 nightclub bill with someone else's credit card

SINGAPORE — She cheated an employee of a watch and jewellery shop, another man and her own boss to the tune of about S$770,000 in Rolex watches and cash.

For these offences, 37-year-old Alina Chan Shu Lin was sentenced to three years and nine months’ jail on Monday (Sept 9). She had pleaded guilty a week ago to five counts of cheating, with another 11 charges considered for sentencing.

For each cheating charge, she could have been jailed for a maximum of between three and 10 years, or fined, or both.

The court previously heard that a man, who was not identified, entrusted Chan with his MasterCard Premier credit card sometime last year for the sole purpose of buying luggage for him.

Chan, however, went to Club Armani V6 Disco along Jalan Sultan, which she frequented, and used the card to pay off her outstanding bill of S$123,900. 

The transaction was successfully processed on Sept 13 last year. She has not made any restitution to the cardholder.

In July last year, she ordered eight Rolex watches from Emperor Watch and Jewellery in the Orchard Road area. She lied to an employee there that she was buying the watches for a third party, who was an existing customer of the store and someone whom the store allowed payment through a credit arrangement. It was not stated how she had information about this customer. 

Court documents showed that the luxury watches ranged in value from S$19,354 to S$112,025, with a total worth of S$398,071.

Chan sold the watches at various pawn shops for S$245,500. They have since been recovered but she has yet to repay the pawn shops.

She admitted to using the money to pay for her personal debts and expenses.

Finally, on six occasions between June and August last year, she convinced her boss to hand over S$249,200 to her. 

She managed to do this while employed by Royal Insignia — a Singapore company that produces ceremonial items.

In order to get her managing director to hand over the money, she lied that a customer required a loan.

She has not made restitution for this either.