T
Toshiie Maeda
Guest
Jun 9, 2011
Woman steals $1.1m of cash, jewellery to gamble
By Khushwant Singh
Between June and November last year, Wong Siew Teng, 30, took cash and jewellery amounting to $1.1 million from Taka Jewellery and its customers. She was then a branch supervisor at the Kovan outlet. On Thursday, the petite Malaysian was jailed five years for criminal breach of trust and for laundering her criminal proceeds at the Resorts World Sentosa casino. -- ST PHOTO: TERENCE TAN
BETWEEN June and November last year, Wong Siew Teng, 30, took cash and jewellery amounting to $1.1 million from Taka Jewellery and its customers. She was then a branch supervisor at the Kovan outlet.
On Thursday, the petite Malaysian was jailed five years for criminal breach of trust and for laundering her criminal proceeds at the Resorts World Sentosa casino.
The court heard that some time in last June, she took two diamond rings from the shop and pawned them for $10,200. She won at the casino and redeemed the items and returned them to the shop. A week later, she did the same with another diamond ring as won again.
Her winning streak did not last and she was soon over her head and unable to redeem the pawned jewellery. The more she tried to win, the greater her losses and in November, Taka went to the police over discrepancies in the sales records of its Kovan outlet.
Investigations then revealed that she misappropriated a total of 109 pieces of jewellery belong either to Taka or its clients. The amount of cash she embezzled came up to $64,000
The items were pawned by her on 46 occasions at the Big Max, Valuemax or Moneymax pawnshops. The $260,000 she obtained from these pawnshops were converted into gambling chips.
Arguing for a shorter sentence, defence counsel Sukdave Singh said his client had no previous brush with the law either here or in Malaysia. She had acted out of character as she was feeling depressed after being jilted by her boyfriend, the lawyer added.
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