Between 2016 and 2019, a woman cheated two people out of over S$2.1 million under the guise of investment schemes involving foreign currency exchange.
Furthermore, her actions affected two Singapore actresses, Chen Liping and Lin Meijiao.
On Tuesday (14 Feb), 41-year-old Chinese national Wu Hong was sentenced to 12 years’ jail after being convicted of five cheating charges.
According to The Straits Times (ST), Wu has no known employment.
She got to know the first victim, 50-year-old Tam Kwong Yoeng, at a pub in 2013.
Later, a Fengshui master introduced her to 61-year-old Soh Choon Heong, her second victim.
Between 2016 and 2019, Wu cheated Mr Tam of a whopping S$1.4 million. She also tricked Ms Soh into giving her more than S$734,000.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Jonathan Tan explained that Wu had “enticed them to ‘invest’ with her by purporting to offer attractive returns”.
She did this with fake investment schemes that promised to provide Chinese nationals with Singapore currency for their expenditure in the country.
Initially, Ms Soh refused to take part in the scheme, but Wu was persistent, saying she needed two more partners.
However, she replied that she did not have money to invest and referred two of her friends who were looking for investment channels instead.
Court documents show that Ms Soh’s two friends were Singapore actresses Chen Liping and Lin Meijiao.
From Nov to Dec 2019, they gave Ms Soh a total of around S$460,000 to invest with Wu. The exchanges reportedly happened at Ms Soh’s house.
Lianhe Zaobao reports that Chen lost about S$270,000 while Lin lost S$180,000.
Source: @aiyoyochenliping on Instagram
In court, Lin recalled that Wu took out the notes and counted them “very quickly”. Chen also testified that the latter placed the notes into a red bag after counting them.
Apart from that, Ms Soh also introduced another friend, Shen Yuhuang (name transliterated from Chinese), to the scheme.
The latter reportedly gave S$180,000 while Ms Soh gave S$95,000 to Wu.
Unfortunately, the money was never returned as the investment schemes Wu promoted did not exist.
Furthermore, she could not explain why she did not have any information about her alleged clients.
According to the Marina Bay Sands casino records, Wu’s two accounts saw an influx of S$1.92 million, and the losses amounted to S$4.52 million.
She claimed that she had gambled on behalf of them.
During the trial, Mr Tam testified that Wu used two schemes to cheat him of his money. As he trusted the latter, he relented in giving the money to her.
Although he did not receive the return on investment, he still believed that Wu would return the funds.
In Jan 2018, Mr Tam finally filed a police report against Wu.
Furthermore, Ms Soh also stated that she trusted Wu and gave her S$71,000 for a return on investment. She would later alert the police in Feb 2020.
However, Wu denied her involvement, pushing the blame on Ms Soh instead. She claimed that Ms Soh was the one who scammed the money under the guise of her investment plan.
Besides that, she stated that she only borrowed money from Mr Tam and repaid the full amount, including the 10% interest.
In response to ST’s queries, Lin’s manager said that she would like to “close this chapter and move past this”.
Wu is currently in prison and still faces other charges.
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Featured image adapted from @aiyoyochenliping on Instagram & @linmeijiao_ on Instagram.
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