By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 25 October 2010 1533 hrs
SINGAPORE: A former executive secretary of
KPMG was sentenced on Monday to five years’
jail for stealing her boss’ chequebook and forging his signature to
fraudulently draw S$641,872.88 from his bank accounts.
Forty-five-year-old Siew Siu Yin, who had pleaded guilty to 23
charges, admitted that she had stolen an unused chequebook from Mr
Kikuo Yokota’s office in March 2004.
However, investigations revealed that her crime spree started
much earlier – when she stole a cheque from the office at Hong
Leong Building at Raffles Quay on July 1, 2003.
Her crimes only came to light in July 2007 after Mr Yokota made
a check with the bank.
He confronted Siew who confessed and pleaded for
forgiveness.
Mr Yokota decided to give her another chance after she promised
to return him the money which she had taken from him.
By then, she had already forged 100 cheques and misappropriated
S$569,372.88 from his bank accounts.
But it was not long before she re-offended.
Siew fraudulently took out money from Mr Yokota’s bank accounts
from April 30, 2008.
She was caught the second time round – this time after a bank
staff notified Mr Yokota on March 17 last year about discrepancies
found on his documents.
Siew was immediately sacked and the authorities notified.
-CNA/wk