Nearly 6 years’ jail for former accountant who embezzled S$1m to pay ‘taxes’ to scammers

SINGAPORE — After being scammed by cryptocurrency traders, Sharon Tan Jia Ee decided to misappropriate about S$1 million from her employer in order to pay the “taxes” they were asking for and to repay her brother for trading on her behalf.

She got away with this for almost a year, until a fellow accountant conducted an audit and discovered missing funds in one of the company’s bank accounts.

On Tuesday (Oct 26), the 32-year-old Malaysian was sentenced to five years and 11 months’ jail for her actions. She pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust by an employee, with another cheating charge taken into consideration for sentencing.

The court heard that she worked as an accountant for ITAL Auto, which conducted car sales and car servicing. Its sister companies are Komoco Motors and MBSA Automotive.

As part of her job, she was entrusted with MBSA Automotive’s bank account and she could also access Komoco Motors’.

Before Jan 2020, a friend had introduced Tan to a cryptocurrency trading platform known as KPCB. 

She then deposited 5,000 ringgit (about S$1,600) into the trade-in account, made some money and received her earnings in her Malaysian bank account. Because of this, she was enticed to deposit more money into the trading account.

She then introduced her older brother to KPCB and he transferred 100,000 ringgit to her to trade on his behalf.

Later, when she tried to withdraw her earnings again, KPCB gave her numerous reasons why it could not pay her the money. 

It also persisted in asking for more money to be deposited under the pretext that there was a “tax” for the income she had made. Out of desperation, she decided to misappropriate money from the MBSA Automotive bank account to pay these “taxes” and to repay her sibling.

Between June 29 last year and April 30 this year, Tan embezzled about 3 million ringgit that was supposed to be for MBSA Automotive’s operating expenses. Records showed that she made 72 unauthorised transfers to her personal bank account.

When there was only about 500 ringgit left in the company’s account in March this year, Tan cheated Komoco Motors’ director into signing cheques that were deposited into the account. She then continued misappropriating money.

The following month, Ms Low Hui Li, another accountant, was auditing the three companies and asked Tan to provide the accounts for MBSA Automotive and Komoco Motors.

When Tan kept delaying the matter, Ms Low grew suspicious and accessed MBSA Automotive’s account after retrieving Tan’s internet banking token from her desk. 

Ms Low was shocked to discover how little money there was left. She and the director of ITAL Auto then went over to Tan’s home and questioned her.

Tan confessed to her crimes, saying that she could repay MBSA Automotive and showing them the mobile application for the cryptocurrency platform. 

She also admitted that she could have been scammed and that she had used a small amount of the misappropriated money for her personal expenses, having given all her money to KPCB.

She has since made restitution of about S$17,500. Her jail sentence was backdated to May 19 when she was first arrested.

For criminal breach of trust by an employee, she could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.