Woman jailed for cheating school friend of RM500,000

Woman is handed a four-year jail sentence for leading her friend to believe she had won a tender to supply uniforms to the defence ministry.

KUALA LUMPUR: A company director was today sentenced to four years’ jail by the Sessions Court here after she pleaded guilty to cheating a friend of RM500,000 to fund a non-existent project.

Shamsuzy Mahasan had in 2015 convinced her friend, Norhemira Juliana Abd Rashid — whom she had known since school days — that she had won a tender to supply uniforms for the defence ministry.

She told Norhemira she did not have enough funds for the project and coaxed her friend to bank in over half a million ringgit with the promise that Norhemira would see “100% returns”.

Norhemira felt something amiss when she did not see a single penny from her investment, which she had made in stages.

Shamsuzy was also nowhere to be found, which led Norhemira to lodge a police report.

Investigations later revealed that the defence ministry had never awarded such a tender to Shamsuzy’s company.

Sessions Court judge Hasbullah Adam handed down the four-year sentence, which will begin Feb 25, the date of her arrest.

Earlier, Shamsuzy’s lawyer Zulkifli Awang had sought a lesser sentence.

“She is the sole breadwinner of her family of six and she is a first-time offender,” he said.

However, deputy public prosecutor Faridah Nurdinie Bahrum argued the accused should be given a harsher sentence to serve as a deterrent.

“This is a sensitive issue because this involved the army,” she said. -FMT