Married couple cheated wife's lover of $220,000 in fake property deals

Man did not know of spouse's affair with victim when they cooked up scheme

- Shaffiq Alkhatib

A married couple cheated the wife's "friend" of $220,000 by luring him into a fake property investment scheme - without the husband knowing that she was having an affair with the victim.

Felicia Tay Bee Ling and Eric Ong Chee Wei worked together to spin a tale of discounted property deals to dupe Mr David Tan, who had never met Ong but knew that he was Tay's husband at the time.

On June 24, Tay, 49, and Ong, 50, pleaded guilty to a cheating charge each. Ong has since made restitution of $10,000 to Mr Tan, 48.

Court documents did not disclose if Tay and Ong are still married to each other.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kiera Yu told the court that Tay was a housewife, while Ong worked as a property agent from 1999 to 2006 before turning to odd jobs.

Tay met Mr Tan in 2010, and they had an affair from 2014 to 2017.

Around September 2015, Ong conspired with Tay to deceive Mr Tan.

They agreed that Tay would tell him that there were opportunities for him to invest in condominium units, which he could sell later for significant profits.

Their intention was to dupe Mr Tan into paying supposed "security deposits" for the units, said the prosecutor.

In reality, the two offenders knew that there were no such units for sale.