SINGAPORE - A serial conman was sentenced to nine years' corrective training for cheating 10 women of over $72,000, including a teenager looking for a sugar daddy.

Tan Chip Huat, 49, was sentenced to corrective training on Friday (Aug 19) after he pleaded guilty earlier to seven charges, including cheating five victims of about $46,000.

Thirteen charges linked to the remaining sum and the other victims were considered during sentencing.

Corrective training is a prison regime for repeat offenders.

Tan had from 2013 spent seven years serving a corrective training sentence for cheating multiple women.

But within a year of his release in 2020, Tan returned to his old ways.

He targeted his victims from January to August last year, and they included at least four young women whom he failed to pay after having unprotected sex.

Court documents showed that while claiming to be working in the finance industry and earning about $60,000 a month, Tan posted on online classifieds website Locanto that he was looking for a "sugar baby".

He was in fact working as a cleaner, drawing an average monthly salary of less than $2,000.

Among Tan's victims were three 17-year-olds who knew one another.

His first victim responded to his post on Jan 4 last year.

Tan claimed he was willing to sponsor her $20,000 arts school tuition fees, but in exchange for sexual services.

They met the next day in a hotel and had unprotected sex.

Tan promised her he would give her an initial $10,000 but said he needed a $400 loan first because he did not have money on him at the time.

He never returned the loan or gave her any money.

The court heard that Tan told the student that he would withhold the money he promised unless she arranged for another person to meet him.

Later that month, he asked to meet the teenager again but as she was unavailable, she introduced him to a sales promoter who agreed to have sex with him in exchange for $1,000.

Tan met the girl, also 17, and they had unprotected sex. He did not pay this second victim.

When he contacted the first victim again, she introduced him to her close friend, who was working as a social escort.

Tan had sex with the third 17-year-old victim on Jan 13 last year and did not give her the promised $3,000.

By using a similar method, he cheated a fourth victim, a 23-year-old freelance social escort, of $10,000 in July last year.

In an unrelated case, the court heard that Tan had also cheated a 25-year-old woman of over $11,000 by using her credit card to buy mobile phones and other items.

For each count of cheating, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.