More than 5 years' jail for secretary, 58, who stole S$1 million from employer, forged educational certificates
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- Peter Nah Kim Chye, 58, was sentenced to 63 months' jail after stealing more than S$1 million from his employer
- He was working as a secretary at the time for a packaging and graphic design services firm
- Nah made copies of blank payment vouchers in order to receive payments from the company
- His employer later found out that he had lied about his qualifications as well
BY
CHARLENE GOH
Published January 6, 2023Updated January 6, 2023
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SINGAPORE — Entrusted with blank cheques and vouchers that were pre-signed by his company’s director, a 58-year-old secretary stole more than S$1 million from his employer.
Peter Nah Kim Chye was on Friday (Jan 6) sentenced to 63 months' jail, which is equivalent to five years and three months. He had pleaded guilty last month to one charge each of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and forgery for the purpose of cheating.
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Seven other charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
HOW HE CHEATED EMPLOYER
Nah was employed as a secretary at I Dzzign and acted as one of the company’s directors between March 1, 2010 and Oct 19, 2016. The company handles packaging and graphic design services.His responsibilities included ensuring that prompt payments were made to suppliers and vendors, preparing documents necessary for the recording of payments, as well as overseeing the company’s accounting records.
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He was thus entrusted with blank cheques, blank payment vouchers and blank telegraphic transfer forms that had been pre-signed by the company’s director Ng Lai Hoon.
This arrangement was made because Ms Ng went on frequent business trips overseas and this would ensure that the company’s vendors were paid on time.
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Nah’s offences were uncovered when Ms Ng did a check on the company’s accounts after he resigned on Oct 19 in 2016.
She then made a police report after realising that he had stolen money from the company.
Investigations revealed that sometime between Oct 24 in 2014 and Nov 3 in 2014, Nah had fabricated four cheque payment vouchers under the company’s letterhead.
He did so by photocopying the genuine payment vouchers that had Ms Ng’s signature, scanning them and doctoring these scans digitally to remove the other entries in the payment vouchers apart from the signature.
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Then, he printed these blank vouchers and filled in the other particulars by hand.
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He also signed on the vouchers himself to state that he had verified these payment vouchers as the company’s secretary.
The vouchers authorised the payment of S$290,000 to Nah because the reason for payment was indicated as “being owed to director”. Nah acted as one of the directors at the time.
He also tricked one of I Dzzign’s suppliers in Malaysia to prepare 10 invoices under the pretext of making Good and Services Tax (GST) claims.
The total invoices amounted to RM120,528 (about S$49,500), court documents stated.
FORGED EDUCATIONAL CERTIFICATES
In the course of the legal proceedings against Nah, Ms Ng found out that his highest educational qualification was that he passed his Primary 3 examination.ADVERTISEMENT
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However, she recalled that Nah had previously applied for a job at printing company Flo-Prints and Packs, with a Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level certificate.
Ms Ng was the director of Flo-Prints and Packs at the time and had received his job application, which included a GCE O-Level certificate, a diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, as well as one certificate in marketing from the Thames Business Management School.
Nah had forged these certificates by doctoring the educational qualifications of other individuals he had access to when he had a different job role elsewhere. It is not known what this job was.
Using the certificates of other people he obtained, he covered their names, scanned the documents and then digitally edited the documents to include his name.
Believing that his certificates were genuine, Ms Ng’s colleague at Flo-Prints and Packs offered Nah a sales consultant position there after interviewing him on Dec 10, 2009.
After checking with the Ministry of Education, Ms Ng realised that he had tricked her and filed a police report on July 17 in 2020.
‘DONE OUT OF GREED’
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Ong Xin Jie sought a jail term of at least 66 months.He said that Nah had committed the offences over a significant time period out of greed and that he had not returned the sum of money he took.
He caused the company to suffer significant losses, amounting to around S$1 million in the 11 charges against him, DPP Ong said.
In his mitigation, Nah’s lawyer, Mr Robert Leslie Gregory from law firm L G Robert, said that Nah resorted to using forged documentation because he wanted to get a better job.
Nah also sold the condominium he bought in 2016 to try and make "some sort of restitution to the company", the lawyer added.
However, DPP Ong noted that Nah is now bankrupt.
"At present, there is no restitution made and the court cannot rely on an unsecured promise that he will return the money later on," DPP Ong added.
For criminal breach of trust, Nah could have been jailed for up to seven years or fined, or punished with both.
For his cheating and forging offences, he could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined for each charge.
