Ex-bank employee jailed 4 years for embezzling S$628,000 after falling prey to moneylending scam

SINGAPORE — Facing pressure from outstanding debts, a bank employee turned to a moneylender but unwittingly fell for a scam. 

Nurashikeen Sinin had asked for a S$25,000 loan but the purported moneylenders kept asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars in "administrative" and "collateral fees", which she was told would eventually be returned to her with the loan. 

In desperation, the branch supervisor misappropriated S$628,000 from her company, Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), to pay the scammers.

On Wednesday (Jan 5), Nurashikeen, 38, was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust. 

Another count of falsifying documents was taken into consideration during sentencing.

THE SCAM

The court heard that Nurashikeen was working at BNI’s Limited Purpose Branch at City Plaza in Geylang, which offers a remittance service for customers to Indonesia. 

As supervisor, she oversaw all the tellers who worked in the City Plaza branch. Bank tellers would hand her cash, which she was entrusted to place in the branch’s vault by the end of the day.

Nurashikeen, who had been with the company since 2001, was also given the discretion to decide when to transfer excess cash to BNI’s main branch.

At the time, she had debts of more than S$83,000 that she could not pay off in time. They stemmed from bank credit cards, loans from licensed moneylenders and an employee loan from her company.

To lessen her financial burden, she searched online for another money lending service and came across a website abicredit.com — a scam site disguised to resemble an actual registered money lender, ABI Credit, which operated abicredit.sg.

On Oct 12, 2020, Nurashikeen contacted a WhatsApp number listed on the scam site asking for a S$25,000 loan and was told to pay an “administrative fee” of S$2,500.

She did as instructed but did not receive the loan in her bank account.

The next day, someone else from abicredit.com told her she needed to pay a “collateral fee” of S$2,500 in order to secure the loan and was told that these fees would be returned to her with the loan.

She was told later the same day that she had to pay a further “administrative fee” of S$5,000 and was promised the loan amount by the end of the day.

THE EMBEZZLEMENT

Desperate, she took S$5,400 from the bank branch, placed it in an envelope and deposited the sum into her personal POSB Bank account.

However, after transferring S$5,000 to the scammers, the loan was still not disbursed to her account.

For about a month, the scammers continued asking for more fees every day to be paid into various accounts from different banks.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Benjamin Samynathan said that at times, the scammers sent her documents purportedly by DBS bank, the Internal Security Department and other organisations, stating that more fees were needed.

“Given the monies that she had sunk into the purported loan application, her increasing desperation, and the misplaced belief that the monies would be returned to her, the accused continued to misappropriate cash.”

To prevent detection, she falsified the opening and ending cash balance of the branch’s cash balance sheets.

In total, Nurashikeen transferred S$735,000 to the scammers, of which at least S$628,000 was misappropriated from BNI through at least 60 cash deposits.

At least S$97,750 was her own money and the origin of the remaining S$9,250 is unknown, court documents stated.

On Nov 12, BNI’s headquarters received a tip-off that Nurashikeen’s behaviour had been unusual.

The bank’s head of customer service Ahmad Musthofa decided to conduct a surprise cash count at the branch where she worked. 

Nurashikeen met with Mr Musthofa the next day and confessed to her crime.

On Nov 14, BNI fired her. The bank made a police report against the scammers on Nov 19.

DPP Samynathan said that the authorities were unable to recover any part of the S$628,000 because the funds had been transferred out by the time the bank accounts used by the scammers were frozen.

The prosecutor added that Nurashikeen is unable to make any restitution to BNI since she is an undischarged bankrupt.

In sentencing, District Judge Marvin Bay said: “While I recognise that Ms Nurashikeen’s naivete and desperation likely played a significant role in her misappropriation of S$628,000 to secure the disbursement of a loan of S$25,000, deterrence must be the important consideration here.”

By calibrating sentences to the amount misappropriated, potential offenders would be deterred from “doubling down” to embezzle even more as their financial woes escalate, the judge said.

For criminal breach of trust, she could have been jailed up to 15 years and fined.

Court documents did not state whether the perpetrators of the moneylending scam had been apprehended.