Woman who took nearly $4.8m from employer’s bank accounts gets over 8 years’ jail

SINGAPORE – A woman working for a company that provided scaffolding services misappropriated nearly $4.8 million from its bank accounts.

Chinese national Qin Xiaowen, 40, then used the money for online forex trading and lost all of it.

Despite this, she managed to return more than $330,000, so the company lost over $4.4 million by her actions.

On March 27, she was sentenced to eight years and eight months’ jail after she pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust. She also admitted to two counts of forgery.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sean Teh told the court that Qin joined the company as a purchaser in August 2016. In 2019, she became involved in online forex trading, and by the end of 2021, she had lost at least $150,000.

The court heard that she became a manager at the company on March 1, 2022.

As the managing director was not proficient in English, he appointed Qin to manage three of the company’s bank accounts.

She was given the usernames and passwords of two of the accounts to perform online banking.

She was also entrusted with a chequebook linked to the third bank account, but the managing director was the only authorised signatory for this account.

Qin later dishonestly took money out of the company’s bank accounts and used it for her personal forex trades.

Between April 2022 and March 2023, she transferred funds from two of the company’s accounts to two others belonging to her.

She also used a bank account belonging to one of the company’s former employees without the man’s knowledge to commit the offence.

DPP Teh said: “The accused had access to his... bank account because she was responsible for applying for the bank accounts of the company’s workers so that (they could) receive their salaries. The accused thus had (his) bank account login details.

“(The man) was not aware that the accused was using his... bank account to dishonestly misappropriate the company’s money as he was primarily using another bank account.”

Separately on March 14, 2023, Qin prepared a cheque for $40,000 payable from the company’s third bank account and forged the managing director’s signature on the cheque. But it bounced as she had written down the wrong date – March 14, 2022.

So she prepared another cheque for the same amount, forged the boss’ signature, and the bank cleared it soon after.

Her offences came to light on March 16, 2023, when the managing director spotted Qin walking out of his office.

DPP Teh said: “The victim asked her what she was doing in his room, and she replied that she was just looking around. The victim felt suspicious when he entered his office room and saw that his file containing the monthly profit and expenses record was on his table, and was flipped open.

“He would not normally leave the file lying on his table, and would instead have the file kept on a shelf.”

The man then contacted one of the banks, and found out that only $750 was left in the company’s account.

He alerted the police soon after and Qin was arrested on Jan 3, 2025.