Secretary jailed for 18 months after stealing S$63,000 from her company, in fear of not being able to afford childbirth expenses
SINGAPORE: Fearing that she wouldn’t be able to afford childbirth expenses after becoming pregnant, a 30-year-old secretary decided to steal S$63,000 from her company’s bank account in a span of two months.
As reported by Yan.sg, case details revealed that the secretary was working for a company and her job included managing the company’s bank accounts and keeping the security tokens used to log in to accounts. In May 2024, when she learned that she was pregnant, she was caught off guard, especially about the expenses of childbirth.
With this, she decided to withdraw money from her company’s account from May to July of the same year and transferred a total of more than S$60,000 into her bank account on 12 separate occasions.
When the secretary began her maternity leave, her supervisor felt suspicious when she kept delaying handing over the company’s bank security token to her colleagues. When the supervisor asked her to hand over the token due to urgent matters, it was discovered that the company’s accounts had multiple unauthorised transfers, and immediately reported to the police.
It was also discovered that the secretary altered the company’s bank statements from May, June, and July, deleting unauthorised transfer records and modifying account balances in an attempt to cover up her crime.
No compensation given
The secretary emailed her supervisor, promising to compensate the stolen money within two years. However, she did not repay a single amount until she was sentenced.
Due to this, she now faces four charges, including criminal breach of trust and forgery. She then pleaded guilty to three of the charges, and the remaining charge is to be considered during sentencing.
Newsletter
Get updates straight to your inbox
The secretary was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment in relation to this crime.
In other related news, there was another report where a man was caught in the act of stealing money from a temple bowl in front of a statue.
He was then seen eventually bowing, seemingly asking for forgiveness, before leaving the area as if nothing had happened.
Read more about the news story here.