A HOUSEWIFE who complained to police about criminal intimidation found herself in Eastern Court yesterday for illegally operating chit funds. Sit Kwai-fong, 39, pleaded guilty to three counts of illegal operation of chit funds and was fined a total of $4,500. The offences were committed in 1991. Defence counsel Mr Stuart Mason-Parker told the court that charges relating to chit funds were rarely brought before the courts and he considered it ''a quasi-civil'' matter. ''All the people who went into it, went into it with their eyes open,'' Mr Mason-Parker said. ''It all went wrong and she said she was going to dissolve the funds. She became the victim of dissatisfied customers who wrote slogans on her door. ''She made a report of criminal intimidation to the police. That's why she left her husband and children and went to live with her mother-in-law.'' Magistrate Mr Peter Line ordered Sit to pay a $1,500 fine for each charge. ''A lot of people lost a lot of money,'' Mr Line said. ''The losses were due to your inability to run [the funds] properly, not [due] to dishonesty.''
