By Khushwant Singh

AT LEAST eight people have claimed they were taken in by a friend who offered them an opportunity to double their money in six months.

The 33-year-old investment manager of a trading company allegedly promised profits of up to 90 per cent and got her hands on about $300,000 from August to November 2007 from interested parties.

When it was time to pay up, she came up with one excuse after another, said her victims. Finally, she stopping answering calls altogether and disappeared.

When they visited her Choa Chu Kang flat, a neighbour said that the woman and her husband had moved out. The group claimed they then received letters threatening them with legal action if they continued to harass the woman. She did not respond to calls by The Straits Times.

The victims said they also went to the home of another director of the firm, who had been present at some of the investment meetings. They were told by family members that the 34-year-old woman was away in Hong Kong indefinitely.

The eight have all made police reports.

Records from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority revealed that both women were partners in a wholesale apparel firm, which closed its doors last year.

Mr Low Ming Leong, a 47-year-old masseuse, told The Straits Times that he had invested $12,000 in October 2007.

The investment manager had reportedly bragged about making $100,000 in five months by investing in metal shipments to China.

She assured him that his money was guaranteed by the trading firm, which she claimed was 'big and famous', with an office in Raffles Place.

He said he signed a contract that he would receive $22,800 in April last year.

No such luck.

Instead, he allegedly received a text message from her saying that natural disasters in China had delayed the delivery of the shipment by a month.

A further delay came about because the bank would not release the money due to improper paperwork, she claimed.

Losing his patience, Mr Low demanded in July last year that she return his $12,000. He was willing to forgo his profit and she gave him a postdated cheque. But when he tried to bank it in October, it bounced.

He claimed she then told him his money was gone and he could go to the police for all she cared.

Together with several friends in the same predicament, he went to the trading firm's office in Raffles Place last month. It was long gone.

Said Mr Low with a sigh: 'The firm shared the floor with many other small companies, each with one or two rooms. It was not impressive at all.'

Other tenants said the trading firm had terminated its lease last February. 'Often, there was only a clerk and hardly any clients,' said 28-year-old accounts executive George Teo.

The firm was also not licensed with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to offer investment services.

'I was too trusting, too eager to make some easy money that I failed to check on her claims,' Mr Low said.

He has given up hope of ever seeing his money again but he hopes the woman would be punished. 'I don't want her to cheat other people,' he said.

The other victims did not want to be identified as they said their families were in the dark about their losses.

'We trusted her and she cheated us,' said a 44-year-old clerk who had lost $2,000.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.