SINGAPORE: A former assistant finance manager of an IT equipment company was sentenced to 10 years’ jail on Tuesday (Apr 25) for embezzling S$5.1 million (US$3.8 million) from his firm.
Singaporean Ho Kam Weng, 54, pleaded guilty to three counts of criminal breach of trust by dishonest misappropriation as a servant, with another two charges taken into consideration.
The court heard that Ho was employed as an assistant finance manager by EZY InfoTech, a locally incorporated authorised product distributor for IT equipment, since 2009.
EZY InfoTech set up another company, Silver Crown (HK) in order to conduct sales in other countries.
Ho was in charge of Silver Crown’s corporate bank account with China Construction Bank (Asia) Corporation and was entrusted with the relevant password and banking token.
In 2015, Ho incurred hefty debts to loan sharks and began taking money from Silver Crown’s corporate bank account for his own purposes.
He would simply transfer the money to his own personal bank account before withdrawing it or transferring sums to designated bank accounts provided by the loan sharks.
Between April 2018 and May 2018, Ho altered a Statement of Accounts to conceal the fact that he had embezzled US$700,000 from a sum of US$1.7 million disbursed to Silver Crown’s account.
In October 2018, the company’s chief finance officer sensed something amiss and made enquiries with the banks. Subsequent checks revealed that Ho had embezzled S$5.1 million from Silver Crown’s bank account between April 2016 and August 2018.
The prosecution sought 12 years’ jail for Ho, while his lawyers Mr Suang Wijaya and Ms Sophia Ng asked for not more than 9.5 years’ jail.
The defence said there was little to no sophistication in Ho’s offences. He confessed after being confronted, and helped the management to tabulate the sums he had misappropriated, staying overnight to do this.
The lawyers added that Ho is very remorseful for his actions and has an 80-year-old mother who needs caring for.