SINGAPORE: A former ValueMax employee was sentenced to jail for four years and two months on Tuesday (Sep 18) for cheating the pawnbroking chain of more than S$390,000 in 2015.
Koh Ah Cheng, who is now 58, had carried out the scheme by creating more than 300 fake pawn tickets.
AdvertisementShe pleaded guilty to 10 charges of falsification of accounts and one charge of criminal breach of trust, with 40 other charges taken into consideration for sentencing.
The court heard that Koh was employed by ValueMax between 2009 and 2015 as a saleswoman and an appraiser.
She worked at the Tampines Central branch at Eastlink Mall and was an appraiser between April 2015 and October 2015, when she committed the offences.
As an appraiser, Koh was tasked with valuing the items being pawned by customers, depositing the items in the safe at the outlet, and disbursing money to customers.
AdvertisementAdvertisementShe had access codes to the outlet's safe, as well as access to the company's cash register.
To misappropriate cash from the company, Koh created 348 fake pawn tickets in total, said the prosecution.
She would go to the safe and retrieve an item that had already been pawned. She used these items because she knew that the company did not conduct checks on items in the safe.
She then created a fictitious pawn entry in the company's system, pretending that the item was a new one that a customer had pawned.
She “pawned” gold chains and bracelets worth between S$2,100 and S$3,500, court documents showed.
When filling in details for the entry, she would use personal particulars of her relatives and previous customers.
After this, she printed the pawn ticket and took money from the cash register, which was meant to be the amount loaned for the "pawned item".
She then kept a copy of the pawn ticket, filed the other copy for records, and placed the "pawned item" on a tray where items would be tallied at the end of the day.
In total, she misappropriated S$390,325 from ValueMax Group, and spent it on gold investments and her husband's medical bills.
DISCREPANCIES IN ACCOUNTS TRACED TO KOH
Her crimes were uncovered in late October 2015, when employees notified ValueMax Group executive director Yeah Chia Kai of discrepancies with the pledges and accounts at the Tampines Central branch.
All the discrepancies were traced to pawn tickets issued by Koh.
Mr Yeah conducted a stock check and found 348 pawn tickets without any pledged items, all of them issued by Koh.
On Oct 24, a ValueMax employee confronted Koh at her home and recovered the pawn tickets from her.
She admitted to the crime and surrendered herself at a police centre.
The prosecution on Tuesday asked for a jail sentence of at least 50 months, pointing out Koh did not make any restitution.
Koh, who was unrepresented, pleaded for leniency through a Mandarin interpreter.
"My husband is going for dialysis treatment," she said. "My son is in National Service and my daughter is the only one working, she just started working. I admit my mistake and plead for leniency."
District Judge Jasvender Kaur told her: "You have clearly exploited a weakness in the company system."
She agreed with the prosecution and sentenced her to 50 months in jail.
Channel NewsAsia has contacted ValueMax for comments.
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