SINGAPORE: A former accountant and finance officer for five companies transferred more than S$1.2 million (US$922,000) in company funds to herself and falsified records to cover up the unauthorised transactions.
She was sentenced to six years and three months' jail on Friday (Oct 31) for criminal breach of trust and money laundering offences.
Ng Mann Shin, 39, was employed by five interior design companies - Mr Shopper Studio, Archluxe, Nativ9 Concept, REDO Styling and MSS Design & Build.
As part of her job, she processed payments to suppliers or contractors via bank transfers.
Sometime in July 2019, she started making unauthorised transfers from the companies' accounts by disguising these transfers as legitimate supplier payments.
According to the police, she temporarily changed her PayNow name to match the suppliers' names on payment vouchers. After transferring the money to herself, she changed her PayNow name back to her own.
Two to three days after making each unauthorised transfer, Ng then made the legitimate payments due to the actual suppliers, the police said.
Between Jul 9, 2019 and Aug 31, 2021, Ng made 224 unauthorised transactions from the OCBC accounts of the five companies to her personal POSB account. These amounted to more than S$1.2 million.
To cover her tracks, Ng manually created 215 false entries in an accounting software known as Xero, which is designed to automatically flag transactions in bank statements which do not match accounting records.
The false entries incorrectly stated that the amounts were paid to the suppliers or contractors, when they were in fact paid to Ng’s POSB account.
"After Ng created these false entries, the accounting records in Xero would then reconcile with the bank statements," the police added.
Investigations showed that Ng spent more than S$288,000 of the misappropriated funds on in-game credits for mobile phone games on over 2,800 occasions.
She also spent more than half a million dollars on things such as feng shui items, household and electronic products, family expenses like tuition fees, as well as luxury goods.
She also repaid multiple bank and renovation loans, as well as medical bills.
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She was sentenced to six years and three months' jail on Friday (Oct 31) for criminal breach of trust and money laundering offences.
Ng Mann Shin, 39, was employed by five interior design companies - Mr Shopper Studio, Archluxe, Nativ9 Concept, REDO Styling and MSS Design & Build.
As part of her job, she processed payments to suppliers or contractors via bank transfers.
Sometime in July 2019, she started making unauthorised transfers from the companies' accounts by disguising these transfers as legitimate supplier payments.
According to the police, she temporarily changed her PayNow name to match the suppliers' names on payment vouchers. After transferring the money to herself, she changed her PayNow name back to her own.
Two to three days after making each unauthorised transfer, Ng then made the legitimate payments due to the actual suppliers, the police said.
Between Jul 9, 2019 and Aug 31, 2021, Ng made 224 unauthorised transactions from the OCBC accounts of the five companies to her personal POSB account. These amounted to more than S$1.2 million.
To cover her tracks, Ng manually created 215 false entries in an accounting software known as Xero, which is designed to automatically flag transactions in bank statements which do not match accounting records.
The false entries incorrectly stated that the amounts were paid to the suppliers or contractors, when they were in fact paid to Ng’s POSB account.
"After Ng created these false entries, the accounting records in Xero would then reconcile with the bank statements," the police added.
Investigations showed that Ng spent more than S$288,000 of the misappropriated funds on in-game credits for mobile phone games on over 2,800 occasions.
She also spent more than half a million dollars on things such as feng shui items, household and electronic products, family expenses like tuition fees, as well as luxury goods.
She also repaid multiple bank and renovation loans, as well as medical bills.
Continue reading...