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A FORMER housing agent who cheated 31 foreigners out of a total of $75,750 in a string of rental scams was jailed for two years yesterday as a deterrent to other would-be con artists.
Admond Huang Weilun, 24, was given the sentence after the prosecution urged the judge not to be lenient, on the grounds that scams of this kind are on the increase and must be stamped out.
There were 231 cases last year, 40 more than in 2009, the court heard.
District Judge John Ng agreed, saying that rental scams are very easy to carry out and the victims are especially vulnerable.
Huang pleaded guilty to nine charges of colluding with accomplices to falsely offer flats for rent and collecting advance payments. Another 25 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
The flats used in the rental scam were in Ang Mo Kio, Marsiling, North Bridge Road, Sengkang, Toa Payoh and Henderson Road, and were owned by some of Huang's 13 accomplices. They would be offered for rent on the Internet.
In one case last May, Huang met Indian national Sharoff S.K. Setty, who had expressed an interest in the advertised flat at Rivervale Walk in Sengkang.
The flat belonged to an accomplice, Ng Phak Bee, 54, who asked for a monthly rental of $1,400.
Also present at the meeting was Tan Boon Hua, 39, who was described in court as the mastermind of the cheating operation.
Tan and Ng then collected $3,450 from Mr Setty as payment for rental fees and agent's commission. They split the money with Huang, and the trio then failed to answer calls from the foreigner.
Huang's victims included citizens from Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Ng was sentenced to nine months in prison last year, while Tan was jailed for three years.
Five other accomplices received jail terms of between a year and 31/2 years, while a sixth was sentenced to six years of corrective training as he was a recalcitrant offender.
The cases of the remaining accomplices are pending.
Pleading for leniency for Huang, who has never been in trouble with the law before, defence counsel S. Balamurugan said that his client was young and deserved a second chance.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo said the courts have considered rental scams as a particularly egregious form of cheating, and the offence is all the more reprehensible when committed by a housing agent.
Huang could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined up to $10,000 for each charge.
Admond Huang Weilun, 24, was given the sentence after the prosecution urged the judge not to be lenient, on the grounds that scams of this kind are on the increase and must be stamped out.
There were 231 cases last year, 40 more than in 2009, the court heard.
District Judge John Ng agreed, saying that rental scams are very easy to carry out and the victims are especially vulnerable.
Huang pleaded guilty to nine charges of colluding with accomplices to falsely offer flats for rent and collecting advance payments. Another 25 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
The flats used in the rental scam were in Ang Mo Kio, Marsiling, North Bridge Road, Sengkang, Toa Payoh and Henderson Road, and were owned by some of Huang's 13 accomplices. They would be offered for rent on the Internet.
In one case last May, Huang met Indian national Sharoff S.K. Setty, who had expressed an interest in the advertised flat at Rivervale Walk in Sengkang.
The flat belonged to an accomplice, Ng Phak Bee, 54, who asked for a monthly rental of $1,400.
Also present at the meeting was Tan Boon Hua, 39, who was described in court as the mastermind of the cheating operation.
Tan and Ng then collected $3,450 from Mr Setty as payment for rental fees and agent's commission. They split the money with Huang, and the trio then failed to answer calls from the foreigner.
Huang's victims included citizens from Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Ng was sentenced to nine months in prison last year, while Tan was jailed for three years.
Five other accomplices received jail terms of between a year and 31/2 years, while a sixth was sentenced to six years of corrective training as he was a recalcitrant offender.
The cases of the remaining accomplices are pending.
Pleading for leniency for Huang, who has never been in trouble with the law before, defence counsel S. Balamurugan said that his client was young and deserved a second chance.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo said the courts have considered rental scams as a particularly egregious form of cheating, and the offence is all the more reprehensible when committed by a housing agent.
Huang could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined up to $10,000 for each charge.
