Hong Kong - A female music teacher at an elite Hong Kong school faced jail after cheating parents out of tens of thousands of US dollars to feed her gambling habit, a newspaper report said Wednesday. Jacqueline Lau, 37, swindled parents out of more than 80,000 US dollars by promising to help them jump the queue for places in the prestigious fee-paying school where she was head of admissions.
She used the money to pay off massive debts racked up playing the Chinese board game mahjong and on one occasion lost 13,000 US dollars at the mahjong table immediately after conning money from a parent, the South China Morning Post reported.
Lau was caught out in July 2007 when a suspicious parent she had asked for a "sincerity deposit" reported her to Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption.
At a hearing in Hong Kong's District Court Tuesday, Lau, a teacher at the Diocesan Preparatory School in Kowloon Tong, admitted to six counts of fraud and two of attempted fraud.
She was remanded in custody pending background reports and warned by Judge Rickie Chan that she could be jailed if she is sentenced on September 23, the newspaper said.
Competition for places in Hong Kong's best schools is notoriously fierce with many schools requiring substantial, non-returnable deposits just to put pupils on the list for available places.
