Jail for woman who pocketed nearly $145k from dental surgery to pay debts, buy luxury goods
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Law Jia Min was sentenced to a year and eight months’ jail on Jan 20.
ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
SINGAPORE – An administrative officer at a dental surgery misappropriated nearly $145,000 of its money from a cash register over nearly a year.
Law Jia Min, 30, then used her ill-gotten gains to repay her debts to friends and illegal moneylenders, buy luxury goods and cover household expenses.
She pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust and was sentenced to a year and eight months’ jail on Jan 20. She has made voluntary restitution of $4,600.
While working as an administrative officer, she was tasked to manage a reception counter, schedule patients’ appointments and collect payments from them, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Muhammad Jahabar.
She then pocketed payments from patients by taking varying amounts of cash from the dental surgery’s register on multiple occasions from October 2022 to August 2023.
“To conceal her misappropriation, the accused dishonestly amended... the cash, credit card and NETS sales figures in the clinic’s (records),” the DPP added.
“Whenever the cash register had low amounts, the accused would also encourage the... patients to pay in cash instead of other payment methods.”
Her offence came to light when an accounting executive found a discrepancy of more than $53,000 between the surgery’s cash earnings and the amount deposited into its bank account from May to July 2023.
Further checks uncovered more discrepancies, said the prosecutor.
Law was arrested on Sept 2, 2023, and was charged in court in 2025.
Her bail was set at $15,000 on Jan 20, and she is expected to begin serving her sentence on Feb 24.
