Nur Wahida Abdul Malik used a portion of her ill-gotten gains to pay for her tuition fees at the Singapore Institute of Management. - ST
SINGAPORE: An accounts and administrative clerk at a logistics firm made off with more than S$168,000 of the company’s money by methods including indicating herself as the payee on its blank cheques.
Nur Wahida Abdul Malik, 32, then used a portion of her ill-gotten gains to pay for her tuition fees at the Singapore Institute of Management.
Nur, who is no longer working for Lotte Global Logistics (Singapore), was sentenced to two years and six months’ jail on March 14 after she pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust.
Defence lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu told the court that Nur has made a partial restitution of more than $43,000 to her former employer.
The lawyer from Amarjit Sidhu Law added that she intends to hand over more cash as restitution after serving her sentence.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Tung Shou Pin said that Nur started working as a clerk for the company in May 2015 and was given a chequebook which was used to pay its vendors.
The court heard that the firm’s managing director would sign several blank cheques from it and hand them to her when he went overseas so that she could settle the payments.
But on 11 occasions between June and November 2017, she transferred more than $151,000 of the company’s money to her personal bank account.
She did so by indicating herself as the payee and writing down her bank account number at the back of these cheques.
Nur had also been allowed to use Lotte Singapore’s corporate credit card to pay for the company’s miscellaneous expenses.
The DPP said: “At the...time, Lotte Singapore’s managing director held the physical credit card and let the accused borrow the card to pay for miscellaneous items. Hence, she knew the credit card number and security code on the back of the card.”
On 45 occasions between February and October 2018, Nur dishonestly used the credit card to pay for her personal online shopping purchases of more than $17,000.
To prevent auditors from detecting her misuse of the credit card, she amended the withdrawal figures on the bank statements linked to the company’s account for March to April 2018, and June to October 2018.
In September 2019, Lotte Singapore discovered that she had been dishonestly misappropriating its funds.
It conducted an internal investigation, during which she came clean about what she had done.
On March 14, Singh pleaded for his client to be given up to two years’ jail.
He said that Nur is genuinely remorseful and regrets her actions. - The Straits Times/ANN
