14 hours ago
Married Singapore couple admit to scamming wife's lover of S$220,000 in fake condo investment scheme
SINGAPORE, June 25 — A married couple who duped the wife's boyfriend out of S$220,000 (RM730,000) through a bogus property investment scheme pleaded guilty to cheating charges in court today.
Felicia Tay Bee Ling, 49, and Eric Ong Chee Wei, 50, misled the victim, David Tan, into believing he was investing in condominium units with high returns, while hiding the fact that most of the properties did not exist, according to a report published in The Straits Times today.
The court heard that Ong was unaware of his wife's affair with Tan, whom she had been seeing from 2014 to 2017, and whom she referred to only as a 'friend'.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Kiera Yu said the plan was conceived in September 2015, with Tay approaching Tan about exclusive opportunities to purchase discounted units at Residences @ Emerald Hill, allegedly available through her husband who used to work in the property sector.
Tay claimed the units could be resold for large profits within three months and warned Tan to keep the investment confidential as it involved 'exclusive offers'.
Acting on Ong's instructions, Tay showed Tan fake option-to-purchase (OTP) forms using the name of an unsuspecting salesperson from real estate firm OrangeTee, and collected payments over seven occasions between September and November 2015.
Tan handed over a total of S$220,000 as security deposits, believing he would make more than S$1.7 million in returns, but became suspicious by January 2016 when he received no returns and got vague responses from Tay.
To placate him, the couple prepared an IOU document in Ong's name in early 2016, falsely promising to repay the money, before Tan ended the relationship with Tay in 2017.
Tan only discovered the scam in December 2019 after verifying with OrangeTee that the OTP documents were fake, and he lodged a police report the next day.
Ong and Tay were arrested in June 2022 and are expected to be sentenced in July.
Ong has since returned S$10,000 to the victim.
