Woman jailed for cheating 3 victims of nearly $85,000

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 the money, but she did not invest in the said properties. Instead, she used the invested money to pay off others who had invested with her and her companies.

On Feb 15, Kamsaton pleaded guilty to three counts of committing a criminal breach of trust and was sentenced to a year’s jail for cheating the three clients 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.

This is not her first cheating case. 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 number of victims to nine.

Kamsaton incorporated Property Wealth Network in February 2014, and was the sole director and shareholder.

She later set up an account for the firm with UOB and had sole control over funds.

Kamsaton then offered her clients the opportunity to invest in property, by using the invested funds to purchase 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 sometime before mid-2015, Kamsaton offered her first victim an opportunity to invest at 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 first victim, before offering him another opportunity to invest the remaining $9,492.50 into a unit at The Millage, a freehold mixed development at Changi Road.

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

Around the same time, she offered two other victims the chance to invest in the same unit at The Millage.

The two victims agreed to the plan. The first victim issued a cheque for $25,000 to Property Wealth, while the second victim issued two cheques for $25,000 each to Property Wealth.

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

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

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

It was only in 2018 that she told her three victims 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 had told her client and her husband that they had to pay more than $26,000 as stamp duty for their Housing Board flat in 2018.

She had claimed that the CPF Board would reimburse the couple on a later date. The victim made a police report when she contacted HDB after she did not receive her money back.

Investigations revealed that Kamsaton had cheated her client so that she could use the money to pay for another client’s stamp duty fees.