Women Who Misappropriated Almost $570k From Motorcycle Distributor Mah Pte Ltd Sentenced To Jail

Article syndicated from The Straits Time - Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE - Two women working for well-known motorcycle retailer Mah Pte Ltd will have to spend time behind bars for their roles in misappropriating nearly $570,000 from their employer.

Mah Pte Ltd is the authorised and exclusive distributor for well-known brands in Singapore such as Triump, Aprilla, Piaggio, Vespa, Adiva and the likes. Mah Pte Ltd started out in the early 1970s and have grown to become one of the most established and well-known motorcycle dealerships in Singapore.

Singaporeans Kamalasari Kamaludin, 36, and Sayeeda Nafisa Osman, 38, took monies meant for the company from at least 457 customers who were making instalment payments.

They used the funds to cover their personal expenses and have made no restitution, the court heard.

Kamalasari was sentenced on Friday (Jan 29) to four years and four months' jail after pleading guilty to two counts of taking part in a conspiracy to commit criminal breach of trust.

She also admitted to two counts of dealing with the benefits of her criminal conduct.

Sayeeda was dealt with earlier. She was sentenced to three years and 10 months' jail.

The offences took place in 2014 and the following year. Both women stopped working there in November 2015 after their crime was uncovered.

On Friday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Chng Luey Chi described how the women siphoned the monies.

Both had used their roles in the company to fool Mah Pte Ltd into believing customers were defaulting on instalment payments.

Kamalasari had worked in Mah's legal department, and was involved in preparing documents on customers who defaulted on their instalment payments to the firm.

Sayeeda worked as a cashier and had access to all of the company's computer systems.

The DPP said sometime in 2014, Sayeeda asked to borrow money from Kamalasari. The younger woman replied that she had no cash to spare. The women then hatched the plan to misappropriate the monies.

"They would collect cash from customers who were making instalment payments... When a customer handed the instalment payment to Sayeeda, they would issue the customer a manual receipt instead of keying it into the computer system and generating a receipt from there.

"This would ensure that the payment was not captured in the computer system. They would then retain the cash given by the customer and split the cash amongst themselves," said the DPP.

Their offences came to light that month when the company's finance manager checked on a customer's overdue payment and discovered that he had already paid up.

The manager conducted a thorough check and realised that the two offenders had been collecting many instalment payments from customers and siphoning the monies for their own use.

She alerted the police Nov 24, 2015.

DPP Chng said that Kamalasari transferred more than $200,000 of her ill-gotten gains into her bank accounts in 2014 and 2015.

For each count of criminal breach of trust, an offender can be jailed for up to 15 years and fined.