60-year-old Seah Bee Leng pleaded guilty on 31 January to 2 counts of cheating and was subsequently sentenced to 1 year imprisonment.
She had cheated an intellectually disabled man of more than $39,000 by pretending to be another woman between 2018 to 2019.
The Straits Times reported that the victim, who had an IQ of between 50 and 70, was working as an office attendant and got to know Seah while she was working as a masseuse at Pearls Centre.
She then moved to another massage parlour at People’s Park Centre, and the victim continued to patronise her at her new workplace.
Seah called the victim in October 2018 and posed as her friend, claiming to be “Lily” and told him that Seah’s mother had died and she needed money.
The victim then transferred a sum of money to her.
They continued chatting over WhatsApp and on the phone, and the victim soon developed romantic feelings for “Lily”.
Continuing to pose as Lily, Seah asked the victim for money and told him that she was a divorcee with a 10-year-old daughter, to put him off requesting to visit her at her home.
Seah then got the victim to transfer money to bank accounts that purportedly belonged to her boyfriend, her friends and herself.
The victim transferred a total of $6,980 between 31 October and 15 November 2018 to 3 different bank accounts, which belonged to Seash, and her friends.
The monetary transfers into her friends’ bank accounts were apparently repayments to them for the money that she owed them.
The victim then transferred another $32,030 to several bank accounts as per Seah’s (under the guise of Lily) requests between 2018 and 2019.
The victim transferred a total of $39,010 in total, via 159 transactions.
It was not made known in the court documents how Seah was eventually caught.
She made restitution of $10,000 to the victim, which was the most that she could raise, according to her lawyer, and she is expected to begin her jail term on 21 February 2023.