A FILIPINA who tried to cheat a bank into believing that she had a deposit of RM189 trillion (S$78.9 trillion) was jailed for four years on Friday.

Barcela Losano Rosario, 59, presented a certificate of deposit purportedly signed by Jackson Tai, vice chairman and chief executive officer of DBS and S. Dhanabalan, the chairman, for RM189 trillion in a bid to get DBS to transfer $100 million into 10 different accounts.

This took place between Nov 21 and 25 last year.

A district court heard that DBS received a letter from her on Oct 31 authorising Mr Kong Kum Chor to negotiate and activate her company, SYJ International Holdings Corporation's RM189 trillion deposit with the bank.

Mr Kong, who was interested in doing business with Rosario, decided to check if she had the necessary funds.

When he went to the Shenton Way branch, he took out a stack of documents consisting of a copy of the COD due to mature on Jan 15, 2010.

As the account holder's name in the copy was obliterated, the branch service manager made a photocopy of the COD and told Mr Kong that she needed to speak to the owner of the account first.

On Nov 21, Rosario came to the bank claiming to be the owner of the COD.

When asked for the original, she claimed it was with another person and promised to produce it later.

A few days later, she again went to the branch and handed over a piece of paper with 10 names written on it. She said she wanted to open 10 bank accounts and instructed DBS to transfer a total of $100 million from the account into the 10 bank accounts.

She was arrested as DBS had earlier found out that there was no such account and the COD was fictitious.

After the arrest, the original of the COD was found in Rosario's possession stating the account name as one Ferdinand Emmanuel R. Marcos Jr .

She could have been jailed for up to five years and fined for attempted cheating.