Pawnshop director to be charged for using company money to gamble and treat himself to luxury

SINGAPORE - A pawnshop director will face 11 charges on Tuesday (June 16) after police investigations revealed that he misused his company's funds to gamble at casinos and buy branded watches and a luxury car.

His actions lost the company more than $5.4 million between June 2013 and August 2018, the police said on Monday (June 15). The charges against him include falsifying accounts and money laundering.

The 34-year-old man is believed to have withdrawn funds from the company's bank account using fake pawn tickets that he had created and then falsifying the transactions in the company's database.

While some of the funds went to distributing dividends to shareholders of the company, he also used the money to service interest payments for monthly renewals of the fake pawn tickets and as downpayment for a luxury car, among others.

He will be charged on two counts of criminal breach of trust by a clerk or servant, two counts of falsifications of accounts, one count of cheating, one count of cheating and dishonestly inducing a delivery of property, four counts of converting benefits of criminal conduct (money laundering) and one count of using benefits of criminal conduct (money laundering).