Ris Low Yi Min

S'pore's tainted beauty queen

Ris made headlines in Singapore not only for her conviction but also poor diction

SHE had everything going for her. Just 19, and crowned Miss Singapore World 2009.

Then everything came crashing down for Ris Low Yi Min.

She is one of the most unloved Singapore beauty queens, now that her dirty secret is out.

Ris was sentenced in May to 24 months of supervised probation after being convicted of credit card fraud.

To make it worse, blogosphere is abuzz with calls for Ris to be stripped of her title.

Wrote one blogger: “(It’s) bad enough that she pronounces zebra prints as ‘zipbra preens’ ... now we find out she’s been charged for credit card fraud.

A bad name

“Someone disqualify her already! I don’t care if the runner-up isn’t pretty or is equally as poor at English, but at least she has a clean record.”

Another blogger added: “I can’t believe someone like her, who cannot articulate, cannot think and, worst of all, is a fraudster, can represent
Singapore (in the pageant). She is giving us a bad name.”

Sounding almost resigned, Ris said on Friday that she was waiting for the pageant organisers to inform her whether she will still be allowed to
represent Singapore in the Miss World pageant in South Africa in December.

“I’m sad and disappointed,” she told The New Paper over the phone.

“I don’t know who leaked this information about me. Now I may have to give up my dream (of participating in an international pageant).”

The Miss World website states that pageant contestants must not have been charged or convicted in any court of law in any country.

A moment of folly

Ris said she had used the credit cards fraudulently in “a moment of folly”.

She said: “When you are young and do something, you don’t really think of the consequences.

“At the time, I didn’t even think I would be joining a beauty pageant or that I would become a beauty queen.”

Ris said the pageant organisers were initially unaware of her offences.

“I told them about it only after I had won. I didn’t know it was part of the contract,” she said.

She added that the organisers were “shocked and angry” when they heard about it. The New Paper’s repeated phone calls and e-mails to the pageant organisers, ERM World Marketing Pte Ltd, went unanswered on Friday.

Ris said: “I regret what I did. I disappointed my parents, because I did it (credit card fraud) even though I wasn’t in any need of money.”

Still optimistic

But she is optimistic of putting this setback behind her.

“My friends have been very supportive through this period. I could really see their care and concern for me. My parents have also stood by me,” she said.

The first-time offender had faced five charges of misappropriation, cheating using illegally obtained credit cards and impersonating their
users’ identities. Another 60 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

She had obtained the credit cards while she was working at a well-known medical group here.

According to court documents, Ris spent more than S$2,400 on at least three credit cards on at least four separate occasions in April and May last year.

Among the items she bought were a S$698 Samsung handphone and two gold anklets worth S$980 in all.

She also visited Equinox, an upscale restaurant at Swissotel the Stamford, twice within the same week – spending almost S$400 on food and drinks
each time.