Jail for woman who cheated 22 victims of nearly $700,000

A woman who ran a Ponzi scheme cheated 22 victims between 2016 and 2018, causing them to lose nearly $700,000 in total.

Jaya Rethinasamy Ghandhi's victims had given her money, believing that she had the capacity to deliver to them airline tickets and foreign currencies.

Yesterday, the 54-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to 25 months and five weeks' jail. She was also fined $5,000. She had earlier pleaded guilty to 20 charges, including 16 counts of cheating. Another 158 charges were considered during sentencing.

Jaya had sold airline tickets on the condition that the tickets would not be issued immediately.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Jia En told the court: "Instead, the accused would give them a deadline when she would issue the tickets, which would usually be around three weeks before the flight."

She would use the time to check with travel agencies online and capitalise on good deals from agencies via group fare rates. Then she would inform the customers of the agreed price and ask them to make payment to her bank account.

She also told her family and friends that she could change local currency to some foreign currencies at favourable rates, with a "lock-in period" for each transaction.

DPP Tay said: "She would use the money received from the interested parties to honour the airline ticket transactions for the airline ticket offences, as well as other foreign currency exchange arrangements she had with other interested parties."

But from November 2016, she could not honour the foreign exchange transactions. The airline ticket arrangements also fell apart after she mismanaged the time limit for some of the ticket transactions.

Police started their investigations in July 2017 after receiving reports from people who said they had been scammed.

While being investigated, Jaya continued her ruse.

"The accused admitted that her business model of concurrently operating her airline ticket business and engaging in foreign currency exchange transactions was not profitable, and not sustainable in the long run," said the DPP.

"The accused admitted that each time she made a deal with the victims, she knew that she had no means to honour the deals without making a loss."

To date, she has made partial restitution of $45,600.