OCBC bank teller who stole S$10,000 to fund gambling habit gets jail

SINGAPORE — To fund his gambling habit, an OCBC bank teller took almost S$10,000 from his work cash bag over two months.

Zechariah Wong An Yi, 26, was jailed for at least half a year on Monday (April 25) after pleading guilty to a charge of criminal breach of trust. Four more charges were considered for sentencing.

The court heard that Wong was handed a cash bag at the start of each shift, with the money to be transferred to his teller drawer.

Between Oct 1 and Nov 28, 2019, he took money from the cash bag on numerous occasions. He would use the money for gambling, often betting on football matches.

Wong took a few hundred dollars each time. To avoid detection, he would replace the money whenever his cash bag was to be inspected.

He got this replacement money by withdrawing cash from his father's and friend's bank accounts. This involved forging their signatures on cash withdrawal forms.

To do this, Wong accessed OCBC's signature verification system on 15 occasions to view their specimen signatures.

He submitted the cash withdrawal forms with their forged signatures on four occasions in November 2019, withdrawing a total of S$7,300 from his father's account and S$2,189 from his friend's.

Wong also deposited S$500 in his friend's account using money taken from the cash bag.

Wong's father and friend did not expect him to return the money withdrawn from their accounts, the court heard.

The judge sentenced him to a total of 26 weeks' jail.

Wong could have been jailed for up to 30 years and fined for committing the offence of criminal breach of trust by a servant.

In a statement on Tuesday, OCBC said that it made a police report in January 2020 after discovering the fraudulent transactions. It subsequently terminated Wong's employment.

"We do not tolerate any form of improper conduct and expect the highest professional and ethical standards from our employees," the bank said. CNA