The 64-year-old cobbler was arrested at HarbourFront ferry terminal, the police said, but refused to divulge the name.

He allegedly issued a check to Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker, took a young woman from there to a Geylang hotel and had sex with her.

He then disappeared after returning the woman to the agency five days later.

A person from the matchmaking agency got a shock when he went to the bank to cash the check, which was purportedly for S$10,000 (US$5900). “The bank officer told me it was only for $1. What's more, the account was closed in 2002,” he said.

The check carried the figure “$1.0000” (with a dot before the zeros, as is done in Vietnam) though in words, in Chinese, it said “ten thousand dollars”.

'I didn't look at the figures closely - I just counted the zeros and they read correctly,” the agency man said.

The Vietnamese woman has lodged a complaint of rape against the cobbler.

Police spokesman Stanley Norbert said investigations were on.

The Shin Min Daily News spoke to the arrested man's wife, who gave her name as Tan, 57.

She said she was estranged from her husband for the last two years. She said they did not talk to each other though they lived under the same roof. They have two children.

Mark Lin, 43, owner of Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker, said the Vietnamese victim returned home in early November and he had not informed her of the arrest yet.

Another case

Another Vietnamese girl was nearly duped by the same man.

He handed over another fake check, this time to Blissful Hearts Matchmaking Agency run by Francis Toh, as the commission for finding him the girl for a wife.

After he left with the girl, the agency managed to contact him and call them back after its staff found the check was bogus.

In words it said “ten thousand only” but in the space for figures, it read '$10.00'.

“I'm relieved we managed to get her back safely. I'll be more careful in future,” Toh said.

Source: Electric New Paper - Singapore.