A former accounts officer in a family-owned firm was sentenced yesterday to seven years' jail after forging cheques from the family's other company, pocketing nearly $1.4 million.
Koh Boon Keak, who worked for Shankar's Emporium, committed the offence 52 times over six years, between August 2011 and December 2017. He then used his ill-gotten gains to gamble.
The 42-year-old pleaded guilty on June 18 to one count each of creating false invoices and forging multiple cheques.
The Singaporean worked as an accounts officer for Shankar's Emporium in High Street, which deals in electronics, from Dec 16, 2009 to Jan 31, 2018. His duties included managing its accounts as well as those of Malaya Silk Store, its owners' other firm. Malaya Silk Store, which is in Orchard Shopping Centre, deals in textiles.
As part of his job, Koh was familiar with the payment and filing processes adopted by Malaya Silk Store. He was also entrusted with keeping its cheques and preparing them for issuance for company matters, subject to at least two authorised signatories.
Around 2011, Koh hatched a plan to dishonestly misappropriate money from Malaya Silk Store.
He took home blank company cheques before forging the signatures of two authorised signatories - a human resource executive and a finance manager.
He then forged invoices purportedly issued by the Management Corporation Strata Title of Orchard Shopping Centre to Malaya Silk Store for " licence fees".
Deputy Public Prosecutor Regina Lim had earlier said: "He did so by first creating a Microsoft Excel template using a genuine invoice he took home from the office.
"He would then amend the details in the template, send it to his e-mail address and print it out from the office to give the impression that it was a genuine invoice."
Koh made the cheques out to himself and the money would then be credited into his own bank account. Following this, he would use the firm's account system to create false payment vouchers and file them with the forged invoices for audit purposes.
His offences came to light after Shankar's Emporium and Malaya Silk Store conducted their annual audits for the period of July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. An auditor flagged some entries Koh made in 2017, and the police were alerted on Dec 28, 2018 . The DPP said Koh has made no restitution.
