SINGAPORE – After incorporating a company and setting up a bank account in 2014, a former property agent offered her three clients a chance to invest in real estate by purchasing rights to commercial properties under development.

Kamsaton Rohani, 57, took their money but used it instead to pay others who invested with her and her companies.

On Feb 15, she pleaded guilty to three counts of committing criminal breach of trust and was sentenced to a year’s jail for cheating the trio of nearly $85,000.

Checks by The Straits Times show that Kamsaton’s name is no longer on the Council for Estate Agencies’ public register.

In 2020, she was sentenced to 11 months’ jail after cheating another client of more than $26,000.

For the latest case, six other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing, which would have brought the total amount involved to $259,492 and the number of victims to nine.

Kamsaton incorporated Property Wealth Network in February 2014, and was the sole director and shareholder. She set up an account for the firm with UOB, and had sole control over funds.

She offered her clients an opportunity to invest in real estate, by purchasing rights to commercial property under development.

She maintained that those rights would be sold for a profit, before the development was completed.

The court heard that some time before mid-2015, Kamsaton offered her first victim an opportunity to invest in Pavilion Square, a freehold mixed development in Geylang. The victim accepted the proposal and paid her $50,000.

Kamsaton did not buy the Pavilion Square unit, but in mid-2015, she told the victim that it had generated a profit of more than $90,000.

She returned $40,507.50 of the $50,000 to the victim, before offering him another opportunity to invest the remaining $9,492.50 in a unit in The Millage, a freehold mixed development in Changi Road.

The victim agreed, and Kamsaton used the remaining amount to pay others who invested with her.

Around the same time, she offered two other persons a chance to invest in the same Millage unit. One issued a cheque for $25,000 while the other issued two cheques for $25,000 each.

Kamsaton deposited the money into the firm’s bank account, but did not purchase the property.

The court heard that the unit had been sold by the time she approached the developer. Instead of returning the money to the duo, she used the $75,000 to pay others who invested with her.

She gave false assurances to the three victims that they would receive their money.

It was only in 2018 that she told them that their investments had failed, which led them to take legal action against her.

The first victim lodged a police report on Aug 17, 2020.

In her earlier conviction in 2020, Kamsaton told her client and her husband that they had to pay more than $26,000 in stamp duty for their Housing Board flat in 2018.

She claimed that the Central Provident Fund Board would reimburse them later. The victim made a police report when she contacted the HDB after she did not receive her money back.

Investigations revealed that Kamsaton cheated so that she could use the money to pay the stamp duty for another client.