HR director jailed for embezzling almost $200,000

An associate director of human resources who lined her pockets with almost $200,000 of her company's money was put behind bars on June 3.

Tan Lee Nah, 53, was sentenced to 18 months' and six weeks' jail after admitting to two counts of cheating and one charge of criminal breach of trust.

Eighteen other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

In March 2017, Tan was employed as a human resource manager at interior design firm D'Perception Singapore.

Merely two months into the job, Tan began stealing from the company.

But her employers did not know and promoted her to associate director of human resources in May 2019.

Tan was in charge of her company's entire payroll, and was the only person in the firm with password access to its payroll system.

While employees' basic salaries would be stated on a spreadsheet and signed by the company's senior management, the employees' allowances would only be indicated on their individual payslips.

From May 2017 onwards, Tan made false claims for transport and other allowances every month, allowing her to receive an extra sum of between $1,000 and nearly $6,000 monthly on top of her salary.

One of her charges states that over eleven months, from January to November 2019, she got a total of $125,293 in multiple false allowance claims.

In August 2017, the company gave Tan two cheques of about $1,500 each to pay for the CPF contributions of a new employee. But Tan encashed the cheques to her own account instead.

In sum, Tan embezzled $195,786 from the company over two-and-a-half years.

Her misdeeds were discovered in November 2019 when somebody informed the company's managing director that Tan had printed out a copy of her salary statement on the company's shared printer, which revealed she had received allowances on top of her basic salary.

The managing director noticed the payslip showed allowances for which Tan had not been entitled to claim. The company's finance director retrieved her payslips and discovered she had been embezzling company funds.

Tan was fired from the firm in December 2019, and the finance director filed a police report a month later.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Lu Huiyi said Tan should be jailed between 18 months and six weeks, and 18 months and eight weeks.

The prosecutor noted that Tan was in a management position and commanded a high degree of trust.

Pointing out that Tan had offended over the course of more than two years, DPP Lu said there was a need to deter her from future wrongdoing.

Her defence lawyer, Mr John Koh of Populus Law, asked for 15 months and six weeks' jail instead, and said she was "deeply remorseful" of her actions.

For each charge of cheating, Tan could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

As for committing criminal breach of trust, she could have been given up to 15 years' jail and fined.