Jail for cleaner duped into accepting fake cleaning job, helping loan sharks
A part-time cleaner was sentenced to two weeks' jail after she was duped by a "real estate agent" into locking up a vacant unit - only to discover she had helped run errands for loan sharks.
According to a report by Shin Min Daily News, 50-year-old Chinese national Li Wei (transliteration), pleaded guilty to one count of wrongful confinement.
Two other charges of wrongful restraint were taken into consideration for her sentence.
Investigations revealed that on Sept 11, Li received a call from a man claiming to be a property agent named Jason. He offered to pay her $30 per hour to clean a HDB unit, which Li accepted.
The same day, Jason instructed her to go to a flat in Woodlands, which supposedly belonged to his son. He also asked her to buy a bicycle chain lock to help lock up his son's bicycle.
When Li reached the unit, Jason claimed that another worker had forgotten to lock the door and told her to use the bicycle chain to lock the gate instead, to which Li complied.
Cleaner arrested after elderly woman called police
On Sept 13, Jason sent her several more addresses and told her to buy three more bicycle chain locks, instructing her to lock the gates of the flats and return on another day to clean them.
Li bought the locks and went to three HDB units in Jurong West the next day. She managed to lock two of them.
However, a 59-year-old woman who was inside one of the locked units called the police when she found herself trapped at home. Officers arrived and cut the lock.
Investigations later found that the woman's husband owed money to loan sharks. Li was arrested that same evening.
She had received a total of $160 from Jason, of which $70 was used to buy the locks. No restitution was made.
