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Tadakatsu Honda
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May 25, 2010
RM jailed for cheating
<!-- by line --> By Elena Chong
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A FORMER finance company employee who duped a woman into believing that her funds would be placed in a fixed deposit account with high returns was jailed for 16 months on Tuesday. Pauline Sim Wei Min, 32, admitted last month half-way through a trial to two cheating charges and one forgery. Then a relationship manager with Hong Leong Finance, she deceived housewife Woon Lay Kian into parting with $60,000 and $40,000 in 2006 after making her believe that the money would be placed in a fixed deposit account with the company. In all, she cheated the 48-year-old woman of $210,000 and had paid her back $150,000.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Hon Yi said in April 2006, Sim told Madam Woon that she could open a fixed deposit account with Hong Leong Finance which would give returns of 3.88 per cent or 4.88 per cent a year, depending on the amount deposited. She mentioned that $100,000 was needed. Sim went to Madam Woon's home to collect $60,000 some time later. Subsequently in November that year, she lied to Madam Woon that she had used her $40,000 to top up the victim's FD amount to $150,000 as she had wanted. Madam Woon then transferred the sum from her POSBank account to Sim's bank account.
DPP Hon said in fact, there was no such fixed deposit fund with Hong Leong Finance which offered such a high rate of return. On Nov 16, two months after leaving her job, Sim forged a fixed deposit placement confirmation letter, purportedly showing that the victim and her son had a $40,000 fixed deposit account for nine months at a rate of 3.08 per cent. The branch manager of Hong Long Finance lodged a police report in August 2008. Sim, who had six other charges considered, could have been jailed for up to seven years on each charge of cheating, and up to two years for forgery.
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