SINGAPORE: A project manager took advantage of his boss’s death and illegally changed their company’s account into his own personal account, stealing more than S$500,000 of funds for gambling and extravagant living.
The 45-year-old suspect faces four charges, including criminal breach of trust and drunk driving. With this, he is now sentenced to four years and one month in prison, a fine of S$9,000, and his driver’s license has been suspended for six years and four months.
According to the case details, the suspect took charge of the company’s operations after the owner’s death, and the ownership of the company was then transferred to a 43-year-old Malaysian woman.
The suspect claimed that the company’s bank account had been previously managed by the owner, but since the owner had died, the company could no longer use the account. With this excuse, he instructed the company executives to change the account number on receipts issued to their customers to his personal bank account number.
Unfortunately, the new boss discovered that their customers’ payments had not been transferred to the company’s bank account, and learned the truth after questioning the suspect. Even after the crime was exposed, the personal account continued to receive remittances from customers.
Between 2022 and 2024, the suspect stole an estimated amount of more than S$500,000 of public funds. The suspect then promised to return the money, but failed to do so.
In similar news about stealing, it was recently reported that an Indonesian maid was found guilty of stealing from her 82-year-old employer’s debit card, withdrawing approximately $70,000 of the elderly woman’s savings over a span of more than a year.
The case revealed that the victim had two debit cards in her wallet, and she wrote her PINs on a piece of paper and stuck the paper to the debit cards. It was when the victim’s wallet was left at home on the table that the suspect knew it contained the debit cards and was tempted to commit the crime.
The suspect now faces several charges, with a total imprisonment term of 14 months. Read more of the story here.
