KUALA LUMPUR: The owner of a travel agency was fined RM3,000 by the Magistrate's Court here for cheating a local woman to get a flight ticket to South Korea involving a loss of RM10,200.

       Magistrate Atiqah Mohamed @ Mohamad Saim passed the sentence on Lee Chorong - the owner of Apsan Travel & Tour - who pleaded guilty to the charge of deceiving a 29-year-old woman into believing that the accused could get a flight ticket to Korea, which led to the victim handing over RM10,200.

       The Korean woman, 38, was charged with committing the offence at a condominium in Bukit Jalil on April 16 under Section 417 of the Penal Code read together with Section 34 of the same code, which carries a maximum jail term of five years or a fine or both, if convicted.

       The court also ordered the woman to be jailed for three months if she failed to pay the fine. The accused paid the fine.

       Lawyer Muhammad Syafiq Salleh, who represented the accused, appealed for his client to be spared a jail sentence on the grounds that it was her first offence apart from having to take care of her two children aged between one and three. - Bernama