Facing mounting debt, a former relationship manager with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited Bank (HSBC) came up with a fake fixed deposit plan to cheat her relatives and their friends.

Between 2003 and 2015, Emeline Tang Wei Leng, 40, cheated five victims – four of whom were elderly – of over $5 million. Among Tang’s victims, who were between 45 and 81 years old, were her aunt and sister-in-law.

Tang pleaded guilty to 34 charges of cheating, forgery and transferring benefits of criminal conduct on Friday (1 June) in the State Courts. An additional 223 charges will be taken into consideration during sentencing.

The court heard that Tang duped her victims into believing she could give them a fixed deposit with HSBC with an interest rate higher than what was offered by other banks.

She told her victims to issue her cash cheques, saying that these would help her deposit their money in a faster manner. Tang then gave them false documents with the HSBC logo and details of the fake fixed deposit plan so that they would believe it was genuine.

Tang’s victims handed over to her sums of between $60,000 and as much as $200,000 each time for the fake accounts.

Even after Tang resigned from HSBC in 2012, she continued to tell her victims that she was working in HSBC to get more money from them.

Her scam came to light in January 2015 when some of her victims asked her for help in withdrawing funds from their investments. When Tang failed to meet her victims, they made enquiries with HSBC and were told there were no such investments. Tang cheated her victims of around $5.2 million in total.

Tang exchanged some of the cash from her scam for gambling chips at the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa casinos.

To date, Tang has returned $800,207 to the five victims. Two victims lost over $1 million each to Tang as a result of the scam.

The prosecution and defence will appear in court again on 26 June to present their sentencing submissions, victim impact statements and mitigation plea.

Tang, who has been in remand since 8 January this year, faces a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine for cheating.

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