SINGAPORE — Some former members of established local running club F1 Runners have lodged police reports against its founder, Lexxus Tan Swee Tiong, alleging that he duped them into lending him money and defaulted on payment.

In a blog post that has gone viral since it was posted on Tuesday (June 5), ex-member Cindy Ong, 35, alleged that a desperate Mr Tan had sought financial help from her husband Derrick Teng in November last year. This occured a night before Mr Tan, 46, was due to lead the runners on a overseas trip to participate in the Osaka Marathon on Nov 26.

Led by distance runner and head coach Tan, F1 Runners trains recreational athletes and enthusiasts in marathon and distance running. It also organises trips to overseas marathons for its members, who pay Mr Tan for running programmes with the club.

According to Ms Ong, the F1 founder, who started the running group a decade ago, told Mr Teng that the travel agency had threatened to cancel their flights if they did not receive S$30,000 owed to them that night. This was despite the fact that the group had already paid Mr Tan for expenses for the trip, she said.

While he initially declined, Mr Teng "changed his mind", wrote Ms Ong, who is an educator.

"As part of the team, (my husband) did not want to see the team fail. Due to the urgency of the matter, he decided to lend Lexxus his credit card to pay for a portion of the trip," she said, noting that Mr Tan had promised to pay off the debt in 45 days.

Ms Ong added: "We trusted him. Up until then, we regarded him as a respectable coach since we saw improvements in running. We thought it was a genuine one-off situation. He sounded really sincere and desperate so we helped him."

Ms Ong joined F1 in September last year, five months after Mr Teng.

Not only did they not get their money back, the couple realised later that he had borrowed money from several other individuals. He had also used their money to pay for slots at a different marathon than the one in Osaka.

Mr Tan's requests for monetary support also persisted, wrote Ms Ong who shared screenshots of the 46-year-old asking Mr Teng is he "has any credit card to swipe".

Frustrated with Mr Tan's lack of repayment of the loan, Mr Teng lodged a police report on Tuesday. TODAY understands that several current and former members from F1 Runners have also gone to the cops to report Mr Tan. The police said on Friday that investigations are ongoing.

Late last month, travel agency Scenic Travel also terminated an agreement with Mr Tan after he breached a contract that involved overseas races. The firm declined to share further details and would only say that they have launched a civil law suit against him.

Former F1 Runners have described him as a "compulsive borrower" who "borrows from A to return B, and then he borrows from C to return B", Ms Ong told TODAY.

She added: "We were confused by why he kept on having to borrow, and each time he does business, there are no receipts. We started to feel something was not right."

In a separate Facebook post on Saturday (June 9), Mr Teng said he has forgiven Mr Tan "for all the hurt, the wrongdoings that (he) has done". "It is not that I am condoning his mistakes, but that I have to move on with my life," he wrote.

Mr Benny Goh, who was a F1 Running member from 2011 to 2012, also lent S$12,000 to Mr Tan to buy race bibs, and he told TODAY that he spent the next three years trying to get his money back. He only received the full amount in 2015.

"I forced him to sign an IOU, and to promise that he would pay back not by taking other people's money, but from the training fees he charges," said the 51-year-old pre-sales manager.

Mr Tan's running packages for athletes are said to cost up to S$2,000 a year. In contrast, other running clubs such as MacRitchie Runners 25 (MR25) charges new members S$40, including a S$20 annual subscription fee.

"Life members" of MR25, who have signed on for five consecutive years, only need to fork out between S$100 and $200.

Mr Goh said he fell out with Mr Tan after he uncovered more information about the latter, such as how he has been listed as an undischarged bankrupt since July 2005.

Another ex-member who was part of the club between 2013 and 2017 said she left after she was told off by Mr Tan for "warning a friend about his borrowing habits".

The female runner, who is in her 40s, said: "I have seen with my own eyes creditors coming up to him in MacRitchie during training sessions... I kept it to myself because it is not nice to say such things about your coach.

"But I had to say something when my friend was on the verge of lending him money."

Close friends of Mr Tan had told others that he has a gambling habit, TODAY has learnt.

In a post on his Facebook page on Wednesday, Mr Tan said he "(takes) full responsibility for (his) financial mismanagement", and apologised to those who had trusted him.

He is "working hard to clean up the mess" with a group of friends, and that he will no longer be handling any money in the running club, wrote Mr Tan.

"The journey to this clean-up will be slow and tedious, but we will get it done."