An administrative assistant who pocketed $549,960 from her employer was jailed for four years on Wednesday. Linda Tan Siew Li, 39, admitted to dishonestly misappropriating the amount when she was working for Tiong Aik Resources early this year.

She also pleaded guilty to forgery by making a false part of a document by appending certain amounts and the signatures of the company's accounts officer with intent to defraud her manager into believing that she handed over the appended amounts to the officer.

Tiong Aik Resources is a related company of Tiong Aik Construction which operates a training and test centre in Chennai, India, with the approval of the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore. A subsidiary known as TAC Resources (India) was incorporated in India to operate the centre.

A district court heard that Tan was responsible for the registration of applications for tests and the collection of test and registration fees for applicants in the construction industry. As BCA administered the test at TAC India every month, Tan was required to carry out the same procedures of registration and collation of money each month. The money would be collected and kept in envelopes At the end of the each work, Tan would place the money collected for the day in a safe located in the office room of her manager, Ms Toh Suat Ngo.

Investigation showed she collected $339,120 in cash for January but only handed over $181,270 to the accounts department. For February, she did not hand over any of the $392,110 she had collected.

Tan admitted to using $549,960 to gamble at casinos and to pay off her gambling debts.

Another charge of forgery and CBT of $231,873 from another company were taken into consideration.

She could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined for CBT as a servant. The maximum penalty for forgery is four years jail and a fine.