Jail for recalcitrant offender involved in rental scams who cheated victims of nearly $88k

A serial scammer who was released from prison in October 2020 returned to a life of crime soon after and cheated multiple victims of $87,700 in total.

Siera Belluci AJ had claimed that her rental Housing Board flat was available for rent to others before taking “deposit and advance rental” from most of her victims.

But according to the housing and development rules, tenants are not allowed to sublet their homes.

Siera, 48, committed some of her latest offences while she was under a remission order between Oct 30, 2020 and March 19, 2021, during which she was supposed to keep herself out of trouble.

She was sentenced to three years and one month’s jail on Wednesday after pleading guilty to 16 counts of cheating involving $42,100.

Another 33 charges linked to the remaining amount were considered during sentencing.

Siera had breached her remission order and was ordered to spend an additional 37 days behind bars.

In sentencing her, District Judge Marvin Bay said that rental flats are made available to people of limited financial means at subsidised rates and are not meant to be used as a means to derive additional income.

He added: “Arrangements to sublet these flats undermine the policy intent behind these rental flats... Further, these rental scams were carried out via advertisements on online platforms, which allowed the accused to have a wider reach and extract dishonest gains from multiple victims.”

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ng Jean Ting said that Siera was earlier convicted of six counts of cheating in November 2019 and was sentenced to 14 months’ jail.

She was placed on a remission order after her release in October 2020, but went on to cheat more victims soon after.

At the time of her latest offences, she was living in a rental HDB flat in Bedok North.

The DPP said: “The accused deceived the victims into believing the unit was available for rent went it was actually not, thereby inducing (them) to deliver to her various sums of money as deposits and/or advance rent.”

In one such incident, a woman was browsing through online market platform Gumtree in February 2021 when she came across a post by Siera, claiming that she had an unit for rent.

On Feb 9 that year, the victim visited Siera’s flat and agreed to rent it.

Siera later received a total of $4,900 from the woman for purported deposit and advance rental for the unit.

The court heard that she did not lease the flat to the woman and made no refund to her.

Siera cheated her other victims by using a similar method.

Court documents did not disclose what happened next, but Siera was arrested on April 27, 2021, before she was released on bail the following month.

But she continued to cheat more people, including a man who was duped into believing that she provided services in applying for an Australian permanent resident visa.

They met on May 22, 2021, and he handed her $1,000 as a “deposit” for a visa application.

She did not deliver the visa as promised and made no refund to him.

The court heard that Siera was arrested for the second time on Oct 4, 2021 and her bail was revoked two days later.

To date, she has made restitution totalling $8,600 to a few victims, the court heard.

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