Ex-Cortina Watch employee admits to cheating customers of almost S$500,000 to finance debt

Soh “was of the view that Cortina Watches did not closely scrutinise the purpose of the purchase under the scheme, and thought that this was a loophole he could exploit”, said the prosecutor.

Knowing that such luxury watches typically had high resale value, he believed he would be able to convince people to buy watches through him using the scheme.

To maintain this ruse, he sent the victims forged receipts, forged copies of forms with Cortina Watch’s company stamp and fabricated screenshots of conversations with the retailer’s purported employees.

He collected payment from the victims, lying to some that they had to pay deposits of up to half of the retail price of the luxury watches upfront.

One such victim, Soh’s friend from National Service, transferred S$181,350 to him to buy seven luxury watches made by Rolex and Patek Philippe.

“However, the accused never intended to obtain luxury watches from Cortina Watch for the victims. Instead, he used the deposit payments from the victims to repay his debts,” said Ms Quek.

She added that Soh intended to refund his initial victims with deposit payments from subsequent victims. He planned to lie that the company had caught him abusing the scheme and would cancel and refund all the purchases.

However, this intended Ponzi scheme failed, said the prosecutor.

Soh eventually resigned from Cortina Watch. He cooperated with investigations and voluntarily gave details of victims who had not yet made police reports against him, said Ms Quek.

One of Soh’s victims, a friend from secondary school, addressed the court in support of his application to recover S$26,100 from Soh.

The man said that their friendship was the key reason why he had gone ahead with plans to buy two luxury watches through Soh.

Apart from seeing Soh at work in the Cortina store, the victim said he had seen Soh’s pay slip and even conducted a surprise check by calling the shop to verify that Soh worked there.

These were the reasons why he believed Soh’s offer to buy the watches was legitimate and why he went ahead with the purchases, he told the court.

The man said that after paying an initial deposit of 25 to 30 per cent of the watch’s retail price, he was progressively asked to make more payments.

He said that Soh’s requests for money eventually shifted from deposits for the watches to financial help to tide him through his mother’s hospital bills.

The man said that when Soh told him his mother had died, he considered this “quite serious” and gave Soh additional funds as he believed him.

Ms Quek urged the court to sentence Soh to 58 to 67 months in jail, while the defence sought a lighter sentence.

The judge adjourned sentencing for Soh’s lawyer to submit proof that he does not have the financial means to compensate the victims for their losses.

Soh has partially restituted S$13,000 to two of the victims so far.

The punishment for cheating is up to 10 years in jail and a fine. The maximum penalty is doubled for amalgamated offences.