SINGAPORE: Money can really be blinding! There is another report where a female employee of a dental clinic stole cash from the clinic’s cash register. Furthermore, she also falsified the clinic’s sales record and encouraged the patients to pay in cash.
The 30-year-old suspect faces four charges, including criminal breach of trust, forgery, a violation of the Code and Criminal Procedure, and misuse of computers. She then pleaded to one charge, and the remaining charges are to be taken into consideration by the judge.
According to case investigations, the suspect worked as an administrator at the dental clinic. She was responsible for front desk reception, arranging patient appointments and collecting payments from patients. The crime was revealed when an employee of a third-party accounting firm responsible for the clinic’s accounts discovered a discrepancy between the clinic’s cash income and the amount deposited to its bank account during the period of May to July 2023.
The employee then informed the clinic, and further research revealed that the clinic owner, financial officer, and their accountant had been dealing with this discrepancy for over a year. The investigation revealed that between October 2022 and August 2023, the suspect repeatedly withdrew amounts of cash from the clinic’s register and illegally misappropriated clinic revenue paid by their patients. More so, the suspect even altered cash, credit card, and NETS sales data in a spreadsheet used by the clinic to cover up her crime. When the cash register was low on cash, the suspect would also encourage the patients to pay in cash instead of using other payment methods.
Over the course of more than a year, the suspect stole $140,000, which she used to pay off loan sharks, gambling debts, and buy luxury goods. After the crime was exposed, the suspect admitted to the offence.
With this, the suspect was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison. The suspect also paid $4,600 so far as compensation.
In a similar news about stealing from employers, a maid stole jewellery amounting to over $32,000 from her employer and also decided to cover the CCTV camera with a cloth to hide the crime.
The 34-year-old Indonesian maid now faces three charges of theft and one charge of providing false information to a public official. She then pleaded guilty to one of the theft charges and was sentenced to 36 weeks in jail.
Read more about the news article here.
